#quiltbagpipe

      As someone who doesn’t really keep up with Cinema, because of the cost of seeing a movie in theaters, I hadn’t heard anything about the Stonewall movie until I saw a post about it just now. After I read it I looked up the previews and watched it, then read up on my Stonewall history.

     The movie was obviously disappointing, but not surprising. It’s doing the same thing Hollywood does to everything else: creating the cis, white, male hero that everyone rallies behind, and making every minority character in the film a less important side character. On one hand, I can see why someone would make that decision. Being Trans is a more charged issue than being gay, which is accepted by the majority of Americans, so more people would go see a movie about a white gay boy than a black trans woman.

     They made the safe decision, but it wasn’t theirs to make. Frankly they’re doing everything the main stream LGBT movement has been doing for years: candy-coating everything to make it more acceptable to the public. A cute little white boy or girl that just wants to love who they love is a lot more acceptable than someone who presents outside of the gender norm. Wanting to get married is a much prettier issue than someone who wants equal access to heath care, or the problem of homeless youth. But the truth is that these issues really aren’t that different from each other in the first place.

i’m trying to start accepting myself for who i am, even though i’m in a place in my life where coming out to my family isn’t safe for me right now

we have Hitlers and we have Ghandis. we have the peace corps and we have the KKK.

but the average person isn't 1000% good or bad. we like to believe that we are the heroes, but a lot of times we can be very villainous without even realizing it. and it's not because we are bad or anything. we just don't know any better.

"girls are so strong for having their periods!" "I don't see color!" "straight and proud!"

these statements are mostly innocuous on their own. but if you perpetuate them, as society has, you create something dangerous. the worst part is, we don't even realize we're doing it. we don't realize how the constant perpetuation of statements like these can harm people who are trans, poc, or queer.

I'm a straight cis woman and I have been guilty of this. the most vivid experience I can remember is when I first watched Sherlock season 2 roughly 2-3 years ago. I despised Irene Adler because she got in the way of johnlock. that was literally the only reason why I didn't like her; because she got in the way of my male/male ship. and yet back then I still considered myself a feminist.

and then when members of the queer/poc/trans community speak out against this casual transphobia/racism/homophobia angrily on tumblr, they get backlash.

"not all straight/white/cis people are like that!" "can't we all be nice to each other?" "you can't bully people just because you're angry!" (and basically any sentence involving the words "cisphobia!" "reverse racism!" "heterophobia!" and "misandry!")

when I generalize statements, I do it to prove a point. I do it to make my fellow straight/white/cis friends feel uncomfortable. because we've been sitting on our privilege for far too long, and it's about time we did something with it.

very true. personally I think, to dislike any sexuality or gender or new concept or whatever you have to be at least close-minded and at most be stupid.

different people like and dislike and feel different things.humans are really really really diverse.how can anyone say "what this human who is completely different from me, feels is wrong because I feel differently"? it doesn't make sense.

if someone feels a certain way and says "hey, I think I want a word for this! and then researches it, and finds a word or even makes up a word for it. that's for them. They can do that. they are allowed to describe their own experience with whatever words they choose.

the fact that people still have to fight for their lives for liking a different thing, or feeling a different thing than other people (even if those "others" are the majority) is ridiculous to me.

for me it's the same as if people would get killed because of ship wars or something. just on a larger scale.but it's just as ridiculous to me.

don't hate, bully, hurt, fight or kill people for what they like, or feel, or were born as, or call themselves.

Hard to swallow:

  When they see you,

stretched languidly across the page,

frivolous in your expenditure of letters,

This is what you are to them.

  Long and polysyllabic,

a frustrating combination of strange, small word-parts

And that Y (such an indecisive letter!):

flung in there so gracelessly.

  You are repulsive to them;

You have broken their rhythm

of short, blocky words that trip off the tongue

with your sudden and awkward out-of-place-ness.

  You are abhorrent to them;

You have blurred their strict margins

of male and female roles,

of pants and skirts,

with your little blip of existence,

mucking about in the wrong side of the clothes store.

  You are an anomaly, a mistake, a mystery to them;

You are a sex to be located

A term to be defined

A word to be pronounced

A gender to be assigned

  But I like you.

  I like how your letters sprawl,

confident and self-sure.

  I like how your attire causes others to gawk

and reorder their worlds.

  I like how your legs look in that tux,

your eyes in that dress.

  How the long swoops of your g and your y

echo the way the ends of your undone tie drape from your collar: