#glbtqa

[ID: first flag has four horizontal stripes, golden yellow, lightish yellow, white and dark magenta. last flag has 12 stripes, 3 black, golden yellow, lightish yellow, white, 3 grey and 3 dark magenta. End ID.]

Asexuality o Aceness (ace-ness): experiencing lack of sexual attraction, whether circumstantially, partially, or entirely.

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them || Junauda Petrus || 312 pages ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Top 3 Genres: Young Adult / GLBTQA / Contemporary

Synopsis: Trinidad. Sixteen-year-old Audre is despondent, having just found out she’s going to be sent to live in America with her father because her strictly religious mother caught her with her secret girlfriend, the pastor’s daughter. Audre’s grandmother Queenie (a former dancer who drives a white convertible Cadillac and who has a few secrets of her own) tries to reassure her granddaughter that she won’t lose her roots, not even in some place called Minneapolis. “America have dey spirits too, believe me,” she tells Audre.

Minneapolis. Sixteen-year-old Mabel is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out why she feels the way she feels–about her ex Terrell, about her girl Jada and that moment they had in the woods, and about the vague feeling of illness that’s plagued her all summer. Mabel’s reverie is cut short when her father announces that his best friend and his just-arrived-from-Trinidad daughter are coming for dinner.

Mabel quickly falls hard for Audre and is determined to take care of her as she tries to navigate an American high school. But their romance takes a turn when test results reveal exactly why Mabel has been feeling low-key sick all summer and suddenly it’s Audre who is caring for Mabel as she faces a deeply uncertain future.

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

Fuck. You.

2012 — The Salvation Army of Burlington, Vermont allegedly  fired case worker, Danielle Morantez immediately after discovering she was bisexual. The church’s employee handbook reads, in part, “The Salvation Army does reserve the right to make employment decisions on the basis of an employee’s conduct or behavior that is incompatible with the principles of The Salvation Army.”

Later that year, Salvation Army spokesperson Major George Hood reaffirmed the church’s anti-gay beliefs, saying:

A relationship between same-sex individuals is a personal choice that people have the right to make. But from a church viewpoint, we see that going against the will of God.

In the US, the Salvation Army lobbies hard to shut down anti-discrimination laws. On their website, they claim to abide by such laws, but they don’t mention that they often do so by shutting down services in areas where equal-rights mandates apply.

In Scotland, the Salvation Army recently fought to keep references to LGBTQ people out of school curricula.

In New Zealand, the Salvation Army led efforts to keep sexual relations between adult men a criminal offense.

The Salvation Army promoted the debunked and dangerous practice of conversion therapy for years on its websites all over the world, featuring links to “ex-gay” programs. While the links began to be removed in 2013, the Church still privately refers young people to such toxic “therapy.”

In the US, the Church fought for the right to withhold health-care coverage to same-sex spouses of their employees.

The Salvation has a long history of firing employees upon discovering that they are lesbian, gay, or transgender.

In 2016, the Salvation Army refused to back a Safe Schools initiative to combat anti-LGBTI bullying, characterizing it as “toxic” and “pro-homosexual.”

In just one example of many, the Salvation Army let trans woman Jennifer Gale freeze to death outside one of their homeless shelters rather than shelter her with other women.

While the Salvation Army touts the tiny number of dedicated shelters they’ve opened for LGBTQ people, they fail to mention that they don’t provide equal services to LGBTQ people in their other shelters.

The Salvation Army was caught in a sting operation in New York City in 2017, subjecting transgender people to humiliating physical examinations and discrimination in housing at a substance-abuse treatment center — in violation of their public service contracts.

This incident occurred in 2018:

“The Hell’s Angels Northwest Indiana Region Motorcycle Club manned the kettles over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and a social media post about it went viral on Facebook before being taken down.

The post showed members of the group ringing bells while wearing patches that read “Aryan” and “WAR” (White Aryan Resistance). The man wearing the WAR patch has been identified as “former” skinhead Jeremy Robinson, the founder of the now-defunct Outlaw Hammerskins.”

“As soon as this was brought to our attention we asked the Salvation Army Bell Ringers to leave. We made the Salvation Army aware and they apologized,” the representative said. “The Salvation Army is responsible for screening its volunteers stationed outside our stores. We’ve had a long history of supporting the Salvation Army and regret this isolated incident. We will direct further questions to the Salvation Army.”

The Salvation Army has a anti-semetic stance:

 “In a statement titled “Reaching Jews With the Gospel,” the Salvation Army declares that “Israel has largely forsaken its place within the care and special purposes of God.” The text goes on to state:

It is the privilege and responsibility of the Christian Church and Christians everywhere to ‘go and make disciples of ALL nations’. In the face of ready acceptance or of stubborn obduracy the Christian Church must continue to fulfill its mission. The Jews are part of this mission, and we recognize that the Great Commission is not fulfilled before the gospel has been presented in a meaningful way also to the Jews.”

Ironically, in the same document, the Salvation Army encourages its members to share the Gospel with Jews by reminding them “of the continued place of the Jewish people in the divine plan of redemption,” and by fighting antisemitism “in society in general” and “in the Church specifically.”

If the Salvation Army truly believes that the Jewish people have a “continued place” in the divine plan of redemption,” then why does it declare that “Israel has largely forsaken its place within the care and special purposes of God”?

And if the Salvation Army is truly interested in fighting antisemitism, why does the church hold up the Jews as in singular and special need of conversion?

The Salvation Army has removed the document. LINK  

12 Reasons to Reject the Salvation Army LINK

Hello dear anon!

Honestly, I thought it was a fucking disaster. 

I never really believed that canon johnlock would happen--in spite of all the narrative cues/signs/clues in the show itself that pointed to it happening, and all the brilliant readings fans have given demonstrating its narrative inevitability--I just never trusted moftiss to do it, especially based on the tone of the show overall in regards to queer issues/identity politics/radical politics/representation. So I was always sadly doubtful. But even if I saw it coming, it was still so massively devastating to see them miss out on the chance they had to *actually* write something groundbreaking. And what’s worse--and I think more important--is seeing the reaction it’s having on so many fans who really hoped/believed/expected it would happen. This show is so important to so many of us and for so many people it was a catalyst for discovering their sexuality and also for finding a community of like-minded queer people in fandom. So to see such a huge group of vulnerable queer people have their hopes shattered like that... it’s awful. That’s what’s getting to me the most. It’s 2017, we should have SO MUCH MORE queer representation in media than we do and it’s heartbreaking to see so many people who actually believed that *something good* might happen have their expectations not only completely trampled on by the show runners, but taken advantage of. It makes me fucking furious.

Sadly though--none of that came as a shock to me. I had reservations about getting involved with this show from the moment I saw the first episode and they had their first NO HOMO conversation. I didn’t trust them to ever make a queer relationship anything but the butt of their jokes. 

What DID come as a shock to me was how bad the episode was overall (and the entire season to be honest), canon johnlock aside. 

What bothered me most was the invention of the Evil Crazy Holmes sister. Not only was it irritating because she literally came from NOWHERE after four seasons (which is really uninteresting as a viewer when it comes to watching a mystery show and trying to work out the puzzle), she wasn’t a real character. She was a Gothic trope, literally the Madwoman in the Attic stereotype (like have these ass-holes ever even HEARD of feminist criticism?????) completely empty of ANY kind of characterization or personality. She was just an Evil Crazy entity put in place so that they could force Sherlock through a series of impossible moral situations and torture him over the course of the episode. And not only is that SO UNINTERESTING, it is soooooooooooooooooo problematic when it comes to depictions of female characters!!!!

I’m so fucking DONE with the stereotype of the crazy woman. And I’m even more done with the stereotype of the crazy, serial-killer autistic person (or someone on the spectrum who has difficulty with emotions). Like FUCK THAT SHIT. That is not an interesting or empathetic or realistic portrayal of mental illness in any way. 

It’s just not fucking realistic. What five year old child has EVER acted that way in the history of humanity? NONE. NONE FUCKING NONE.

Ugh.

And then there’s the issue of alllll the abandoned plot threads and holes. Like... I’m sorry, why did Euros randomly break out of her super fortified prison just to come and flirt with John Watson on a bus for a few months, pretend to be a random serial killer’s daughter to fuck with Sherlock, pretend to be John’s therapist and THEN GO BACK TO HER SUPER FORTIFIED PRISON??? Like why. What is even the motivation for any of that?

Oh, right. I remember. She’s “crazy”, so none of her actions have to make any narrative sense--right. How convenient.

The whole episode just felt so arbitrary and meaningless, and also, implausible. 

Like, how did Sherlock, John and Mycroft all survive the fucking GRENADE that was sent to 221B??? And how did Euros transport Sherlock, John, and Mycroft off the island to set them up in her last little trick at the Holmes estate (what even happened to Mycroft btw?? Never explained), and like how could one person have the ability to mind control everyone she meets like????????? And why did they show us footage of the lost little girl on the plane if it wasn’t really happening and it was just Euros all along????

What’s more, this episode meant that NONE of the plot holes and dropped threads from the previous episodes were given any kind of resolution. There’s almost too many to name. But for instance, all that stuff with Culverton Smith’s memory drug was *never* used for any other purpose, after they made such a big deal of it! (And that could have been so interesting to explain so many things!!! Like throughout the series!) All of the paralleling between Mary and Moriarty never led anywhere (why did she keep saying Miss Me???? Why did she try to murder Sherlock TWICE throughout the series? Why did John forgive her so easily for that? Why isn’t the whole AGRA backstory more interesting???? If John was so fucking in love with her why did he cheat on her with random crazy sister on the bus???? Why did John and Mary have a conversation about how their child was Satan?? Why did Imaginary Mary keep acting all threatening and telling John not to tell anyone about her??)

Honestly, there are just too many to name. I really hated The Six Thatchers, liked a lot of The Lying Detective but now that I know so much of it was just Euros bullshit I like it a lot less, and although there *were* moments that I liked in this episode (Mrs. Hudson’s vacuuming scene for instance), overall, I thought it was over the top, self-indulgent, and just... so disappointing.

I did like that it ended with John and Sherlock back in Baker Street together solving cases, and was SO RELIEVED that they didn’t pair Sherlock off with any random female character (thank god). But that fucking scene with Molly omg what a fucking piece of patriarchal garbage. I’m pissed for her character that they did that to her. She deserved so much better than that. 

The Prince and the Dressmaker || Jen Wang || 277 pages ------------------------------------------------------ Top 3 Genres: Graphic Novels / Young Adult / GLBTQA

Synopsis: Paris, at the dawn of the modern age:

Prince Sebastian is looking for a bride―or rather, his parents are looking for one for him. Sebastian is too busy hiding his secret life from everyone. At night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia―the hottest fashion icon in the world capital of fashion!

Sebastian’s secret weapon (and best friend) is the brilliant dressmaker Frances―one of only two people who know the truth: sometimes this boy wears dresses. But Frances dreams of greatness, and being someone’s secret weapon means being a secret. Forever. How long can Frances defer her dreams to protect a friend?

These Witches Don't Burn || Isabel Sterling || These Witches Don't Burn #1 || 336 pages ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top 3 Genres: Fantasy / Young Adult / GLBTQA

Synopsis: Hannah's a witch, but not the kind you're thinking of. She's the real deal, an Elemental with the power to control fire, earth, water, and air. But even though she lives in Salem, Massachusetts, her magic is a secret she has to keep to herself. If she's ever caught using it in front of a Reg (read: non-witch), she could lose it. For good. So, Hannah spends most of her time avoiding her ex-girlfriend (and fellow Elemental Witch) Veronica, hanging out with her best friend, and working at the Fly by Night Cauldron selling candles and crystals to tourists, goths, and local Wiccans.

But dealing with her ex is the least of Hannah's concerns when a terrifying blood ritual interrupts the end-of-school-year bonfire. Evidence of dark magic begins to appear all over Salem, and Hannah's sure it's the work of a deadly Blood Witch. The issue is, her coven is less than convinced, forcing Hannah to team up with the last person she wants to see: Veronica.

While the pair attempt to smoke out the Blood Witch at a house party, Hannah meets Morgan, a cute new ballerina in town. But trying to date amid a supernatural crisis is easier said than done, and Hannah will have to test the limits of her power if she's going to save her coven and get the girl, especially when the attacks on Salem's witches become deadlier by the day.