idk

the bible (king james edition)

a copy of the U.S. consitution

a copy of my school’s current rulebook

i do this so that whenever someone at school tries to make a point and then defends it by saying ‘it’s in the constitution!’ or ‘it’s from the bible!’ or something else along those lines, i can pull out my own copy and say, ‘where exactly does it say that?’

I am a many headed beast, asexual, panromantic, genderfluid, and they’re all equally important to who I am. Having the word “queer” to describe myself gives me the ability to break down the walls between my identities.

I’m not just asexual, or panromantic, or nonbinary, I’m all of them, always.

When people reclaim “queer,” it’s not, “this word is bad and means bad things and I’m gonna use it!”

It’s, “this word is good and means good things, and I’m gonna use it. I’m not accepting the idea that being different is bad, and that the particular ways that I’M different are bad. This term is a compliment. You’re confused, because you’re a bigot.”

It’s, “you think these are the worst, most disgusting and horrible things about me. But I know that these are my strengths. I know that the weird, bizarre, peculiar, abnormal, atypical, and different things about me are weird to you, and that you might hate them and hate me for them… and they’re also glorious, amazing, innovative, colorful, joyful, and inspiring.”

It’s, “I know that my community, and my culture, and my chosen family, and maybe even my life in general, are unconventional and unusual and unfamiliar to the rest of the world. And I also know that they’re powerful, wonderful, and life-saving. I know that if the world was willing to learn from us, it would be a less toxic, much better place.”

Kind of like if some asshole said, “That shirt is so gay,” and you said, “THANK you!”

The reclamation of “queer” is based on acceptance of entire concepts related to “different,” “abnormal,” et cetera, and embracing them as good and wonderful things that enrich both those individuals and their surrounding community.

And that person up there arguing for its continued slur-ness sounds a whole lot like the sort of people who made it a slur the first time around, who treat our weirdness, strangeness, peculiarity, bizarreness, outlandishness, eccentricity, unconventionality, unorthodoxy, uncanniness, oddness, unexpectedness, unfamiliarity, curiosity, unusuality, abnormality, anomaly, atypicality, untypicality, and difference as bad things they mean us to be ashamed of.

I’m not surprised they don’t understand or accept our reclamation of it. They don’t understand or accept us, either. They’re pegging us as broken or deviant LBGTQs who just need to shut up and squeeze ourselves into the boxes provided, which are totally a reasonable number and variety of boxes provided because all the people complaining about “the q slur” have found their box.

And there’s an undercurrent of accusation that we’re really self-hating somehow, what with our self-harming use of “queer” to describe ourselves, and that … sounds familiar.

I suppose if it’s that hard to believe we love ourselves, in our weird, strange, peculiar, bizarre, outlandish, eccentric, unconventional, unorthodox, uncanny, odd, unexpected, unfamiliar, curious, unusual, abnormal, anomalous, atypical, untypical, and different glory, that’s the sort of conclusion logic produces?

I’m old enough to be half of y'all’s mom. Fuck you. I didn’t go to aids funerals and watch an entire generation of my forebears decimated as a child for you little shits to tell me how I and they or ANYONE ELSE is allowed to identify.

We’ve been calling ourselves queer since before WWII. It was not originally used “by cishets”. It was used by us. To describe us. Interchangeably with gay, which was used by all genders.

Ten years before you were born, Queer Nation was fighting for rights you now enjoy, marching in the streets. Queer Nation was founded by members of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an organization for AIDS advocacy, because we were literally dying in the streets. Which is where die-ins came from, by the way - during the AIDS crisis when hospitals wouldn’t touch us with a ten foot pole, people protested by literally dying in a place inconvenient for the powers that be.

Whoever “taught” you that queer is a slur and always has been lied to you.

Ah, yes, the great Banana Famine. Dark, dark days indeed. Gather round my children, I am going to tell you a story of great tragedy.

Eons back, in a strange far away land, in a world now long gone (circa 1950), the Gros Michel reigned supreme. It was the one Banana to rule All bananas. Gros Michel (literally Fat Michael in French, also known as “Big Mike”) was the main banana cultivar grown in Central America and sold around the globe. A noble specimen, it’s thick peel and dense bunches made it resilient, easy to ship, and yes also fat. Look. Look at it. This banana is thiiiiiiiicc

hard to find good photos. it would have also resembled the goldfinger banana. looooook et it, it so thicc

so thicc. 

Ahem.

And all was well and good and peaceful.

Everything changed when the Panama disease attacked.

Ah, the Panama disease. The great banana plague. The Banana Blight, if you will. Songs were written in elegy to the terrible destruction it wrought. Like, actually. Here’s the “Yes we have no bananas” song:

It was Chaos.

Vast tracts of plantation banana trees, noble warriors, slaughtered, cut down in their prime. Ah! the grief. Ah! the loss.

But, amid the havoc of what wikipedia and I refer to as the Gros Michel Devastation Era, an unlikely hero arose. You know it as simply a humble banana. But our hero has a name:

cavendish, it’s named cavendish. 

The Cavendish banana, a cultivar that had been mass produced since the turn of the century, but only just then got it’s Time to Shine. For whatever reason, Cavendish bananas grew just fine in the same Panama disease-ridden soil that destroyed Gros Michel trees. So yeah, we planted them, fought the blight, won the war, got bananas back. 

But every war has casualties. 

Never again were bananas so tasty. Never again, were bananas so thicc.

I warned you this was the story of a tragedy. A moment of silence for our fallen comrade, please. Raise your wands to our late, great hero, Gros Michel.

(You can still get em in some places tho. Or like hybrids? idk. ) 

And kiddies, that’s the story of the banana famine as i know it.

Other deets:

BANANAS HAD SEEDS HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THIS

LOOK AT IT

bananas were cultivated over time to be seedless. 

Bananas were deboned. dwell on that.

unnfff yeah

feels so wrong but so good

unnnfff

misc stuff 

cavendish bananas may or may not be dying. We may or may not see the dark days of plague descend again. idk, look it up.

There’s a story (not proven) that the reason artificial banana flavor tastes weird is b/c it was based on the flavor of the Gros Michel. If so, it might be cause Fat Mike had a stronger taste (due to higher levels of isoamyl acetate). idk.

the “Yes we have no bananas” song was written in 1922 during an earlier outbreak. src.  like any good plague, panama disease has a history of hovering over it’s fearful victims, sometimes for years, before striking the final blow.

sources are in the links above, also see the links on these wiki pages

i swear if i get hate mail on a banana post i don’t even know what i’ll do, probably stab a wall with a fork and eat it.

I want to share one more thing with you.

I saw this with my own two eyeballs. now you have too. we never speak of this again. we take this to our graves

shhit I’m tired. 

you guys owe me a reblog on this one. Honor system, don’t mooch.

I think this is necessary to post. I see a lot of people “saving” bunnies.