Cheer The Unicorns On!

«At the Internet Archive, this is how we digitize a book. We never destroy a book by cutting off its binding. Instead, we digitize it the hard way—one page at a time. We use the Scribe, a book scanner our engineers invented, along with the software that it runs. Our scanning centers are located in universities and libraries around the world, from Boston Public Library to the University of Toronto to the Wellcome Library and beyond. Eliza is one of our fastest and most accurate scanners. Next she will execute quality control checks and fix any errors. Then she ships the book back to our Physical Archive for long-term preservation. Now imagine this: scanners like Eliza have done this 2,000,000 times. That’s what it takes to provide you with a free digital library.» – Plus Internet Archive’s Modern Book Collection Now Tops 2 Million Volumes, by Chris Freeland, February 3, 2021

https://archive.org/donate/?origin=iawww-TopNavDonateButton

They also use this to provide openlibrary.org, where you can check out so many amazing books!

Not even done: here are lots more trans books!

This one is not #ownvoices:

Ace books:

Aro books: j/k they don't have any yet

Polyamory:

«At the Internet Archive, this is how we digitize a book. We never destroy a book by cutting off its binding. Instead, we digitize it the hard way—one page at a time. We use the Scribe, a book scanner our engineers invented, along with the software that it runs. Our scanning centers are located in universities and libraries around the world, from Boston Public Library to the University of Toronto to the Wellcome Library and beyond. Eliza is one of our fastest and most accurate scanners. Next she will execute quality control checks and fix any errors. Then she ships the book back to our Physical Archive for long-term preservation. Now imagine this: scanners like Eliza have done this 2,000,000 times. That’s what it takes to provide you with a free digital library.» – Plus Internet Archive’s Modern Book Collection Now Tops 2 Million Volumes, by Chris Freeland, February 3, 2021

https://archive.org/donate/?origin=iawww-TopNavDonateButton

They also use this to provide openlibrary.org, where you can check out so many amazing books!

Not even done: here are lots more trans books!

«At the Internet Archive, this is how we digitize a book. We never destroy a book by cutting off its binding. Instead, we digitize it the hard way—one page at a time. We use the Scribe, a book scanner our engineers invented, along with the software that it runs. Our scanning centers are located in universities and libraries around the world, from Boston Public Library to the University of Toronto to the Wellcome Library and beyond. Eliza is one of our fastest and most accurate scanners. Next she will execute quality control checks and fix any errors. Then she ships the book back to our Physical Archive for long-term preservation. Now imagine this: scanners like Eliza have done this 2,000,000 times. That’s what it takes to provide you with a free digital library.» – Plus Internet Archive’s Modern Book Collection Now Tops 2 Million Volumes, by Chris Freeland, February 3, 2021

https://archive.org/donate/?origin=iawww-TopNavDonateButton

They also use this to provide openlibrary.org, where you can check out so many amazing books!

«At the Internet Archive, this is how we digitize a book. We never destroy a book by cutting off its binding. Instead, we digitize it the hard way—one page at a time. We use the Scribe, a book scanner our engineers invented, along with the software that it runs. Our scanning centers are located in universities and libraries around the world, from Boston Public Library to the University of Toronto to the Wellcome Library and beyond. Eliza is one of our fastest and most accurate scanners. Next she will execute quality control checks and fix any errors. Then she ships the book back to our Physical Archive for long-term preservation. Now imagine this: scanners like Eliza have done this 2,000,000 times. That’s what it takes to provide you with a free digital library.» – Plus Internet Archive’s Modern Book Collection Now Tops 2 Million Volumes, by Chris Freeland, February 3, 2021

https://archive.org/donate/?origin=iawww-TopNavDonateButton

I hate to sing another song about loveThe flame is something that you should be aware ofI’m probably not the first one to claimLove is a dangerous flame

Added!

’

Was James Baldwin REALLY bisexual?   

I can’t count how many times I’ve seen author, civil rights activist, journalist, essayist, and all-around lion of literature James Baldwin called gay.   Gay gay gay.  Always gay.   You know, except for all the women he loved, slept with, or almost married that you never hear about *eyeroll*  

So I picked up his official biography, James Baldwin: A Biography, written by his longtime friend David Leeming to get to the truth.   And the truth is that James Baldwin was a VERY complicated man.  

There is no doubt his writing was genius.  He was smart, passionate, and had a way of writing that could inspire the reader.  He was bold and wrote about topics that no one else wanted to touch, even when they alienated the white publishing industry or respectable black leaders.  

But Baldwin also struggled with depression, was terrible with money, often drank way too much, and could throw melodramatic temper tantrums that oten alienated friends and fellow artists.  He attempted suicide several times early in his life and died of complications from esophageal cancer which he’d tried to burn out by drinking lots of whisky.  It says on the first page of his biography “He preferred to use the fact of his illegitimacy, as he did his minority status and his homosexuality, as supporting material for a mythic or representative persona”, which makes it hard to pin down the line between the myth and the man.  

So was James Baldwin gay or bisexual?

The answer I came to is yes, he was what we would now call bisexual.  Throughout the book it’s clear that Baldwin loved many men and women.  He slept with many men and women.   While most of his relationships were with men - both long term and short flings - he there were two women who so captured his heart over the years that towards the end of his life he regretted not marrying them.   

Moreover, Leeming makes very clear that all of Baldwin’s fictional characters were autobiographical to a degree, and several of those characters were bisexual.  Leeming even uses the word bisexual to describe them.   Most of his works deal with homosexuality but few do so in a way that excludes characters who identify as having homosexual feelings from also sleeping with women, much like the man himself.  

BUT

AND I WANT TO EMPHASIZE THIS

BUT

James Baldwin was not a man who enjoyed labels.  He did not have much interest in what we would call identity politics or the gay rights movement of his time.  He didn’t understand transgender people, and was frankly cruel and transphobic when a friend told him she would transition.  And he took a lot of care to keep his relationships out of the public eye (though some might say he stuffed his lovers in the closet).   He valued discretion so much that Leeming often obfuscates if some of the people in Baldwin’s life were lovers or just friends.   For example, he never comes out and says Baldwin has a sexual relationship with Lucien, ostensibly the love of his life.   In fact, he says that Lucien’s straightness and subsequent marriages to women were hindrances to Baldwin’s love of the man.  It isn’t until Baldwin painfully breaks up with Lucien after years of togetherness that the reader realizes they were TOGETHER TOGETHER.  

So anyone looking to Baldwin to be a perfect bisexual role model won’t find what they are looking for.   

Baldwin is a complex and sometimes contradictory man.  He was deeply invested in the American the civil rights struggle, though he lived most of his life in France and Turkey – away from the Harlem homeland where he set most of his novels.   He claimed to have no shame about his homosexuality, but he rarely took his male lovers to public events.   He was admittedly very lonely and longed for love, but he also preferred to hook up with emotionally volatile men much younger than himself, pursuing almost parental dynamics rather than look for a relationship of equals.  His writing sparkles with a depth and dynamism that challenged both white and black people to examine their inner selves, but he often failed to live his own advice.  

heres the cis girl complaining

and heres the trans girl shes going on and on about the big, superstrong, threatening body of

Hey, Justin, when’s b–

[image is a screenshot of nsync’s “it’s gonna be me” video, captioned “bi+ history month? it’s gonna be may”]

ok but seriously, why did I never know that the original video for this song has some serious bi lighting?? 

Anyway, there are now 15, count ‘em, FIFTEEN different resources for learning bi+ history, at https://www.bihistorymonth.org/where-to-learn-about-bisexual-history/. It’s an absolute feast of inspiration. 

[A square image in overlapping shades of the pink, purple, and blue of the bi flag, with a joyful Black woman centered on it, arms outstretched and face upraised. Text reads: “Prepare your posts. Spread the word. May 2021 is the second annual Bi+ History Month.”]

[Image transcription: Be part of Bi+ History! None of it is common knowledge. We’re all learning and sharing together. Check bihistorymonth.org for resources. Share your discoveries: A zine. A song. A person. An idea. A moment. A memory. If you like, add your own thoughts; make a video; create art. Tag it with #BiHistoryMonth. Share what others tag.]

(image is from @johannesviii​. the original, with image description, is right over here -- along with a lot of other great work!)

get in, loser user, we’re going shopping time traveling

come visit amazing historical bi+ spaces! guaranteed absolutely zero alien attacks! 

first, we land in Mexico City, 1947, where bisexual, polyamorous, socialist/Communist, disabled, Indigenous, brilliant artist Frida Kahlo is painting in her garden. Enjoy the sounds of brushstrokes, birdsong, the occasional organ-grinder, and eventually, some record albums playing in the background. 

Then we pop just a quarter-century ahead, to New York City, 1971. 

Five years before, bi activist Stephen Donaldson started the world’s first gay student organization: the Student Homophile League, at Columbia University. Last year, it became “Gay People at Columbia-Barnard.” And now it’s taken over this unused utility closet, in the basement of Furnald Hall, to create its very own lounge.

Kick back with a few of your fellow students to read, work, or just soak up the space. You’ll hear them turning pages, writing, flipping through books and papers, and at one point, eating a bag of chips. Later, someone comes in and turns on the college radio station, WCKR, which is playing some free jazz, followed by a live interview with Abbie Hoffman.

“You are beautiful when you do beautiful things.”

“The present tense of regret is indecision.”

“We understand so much, but the sky behind those lights– mostly void, partially stars– that sky reminds us we don’t understand even more.”

“Be proud of your place in the Cosmos. It is small and yet it is.”

“Believe in yourself. You are an ancient, absent god, discussed only rarely by literary scholars. So if you don’t believe, no one will.”

“Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.”

“Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won’t. That’s what love is.”

“Are we living a life that is safe from harm? Of course not. We never are. But that’s not the right question. The question is are we living a life that is worth the harm?”

“When we talk about teenagers, we adults often talk with an air of scorn, of expectation for disappointment. And this can make people who are presently teenagers feel very defensive. But what everyone should understand is that none of us are talking to the teenagers that exist now, but talking back to the teenager we ourselves once were – all stupid mistakes and lack of fear, and bodies that hadn’t yet begun to slump into a lasting nothing. Any teenager who exists now is incidental to the potent mix of nostalgia and shame with which we speak to our younger selves.”

“We are not history yet. We are happening now. How miraculous is that?”

“Wednesday has been cancelled due to a scheduling error.”

“We have nothing to fear except ourselves. We are unholy, awful people.”

“A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A basilisk.”

“There’s nothing under your bed. There’s nothing in your closet. Nothing waits in every darkness. Nothing is the most terrifying thing of all.”

“The night sky is ten miles wide, eight miles deep, and floats three miles up. Its favourite food is grape jelly. It wants to be a drummer.”

“Look to the sky. You will not find answers there, but you will certainly see what everyone is screaming about.”

“Ignorance might not actually be bliss, but it is certainly less work.”

“And now, a special report. Crocodiles: Can they eat your children? *YES.*”

“Lie down and look up at the ceiling and breathe with those curiously fragile lungs of yours and remind yourself: Don’t worry. Don’t worry. All is as it was meant to be. It was meant to be lonely and terrifying and unfair and fleeting. Don’t worry.”

“As long as I’m reminding myself things, I’m a good person, worthy of love – both from myself and others.”

“Guns don’t kill people! It’s impossible to be killed by a gun. We are all invincible to bullets and it’s a miracle!”

“Everything is exciting! Particularly existence. Existence is the most thrilling fact of all.”

“There is a monster under your bed. A monster at your window. A monster any place you imagine one. You project your monsters on the world.”

“You miss 100% of the bank robberies you don’t commit.”

“I like my coffee like I like my nights. Dark, endless, and impossible to sleep through. ”

“A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale.”

“And now, the weather.”

I discovered this podcast at the beginning of high school, and let me tell you, it rewired my synapses.

Not only was it my first experience with positive LGBT representation, it was the show I clung to when everything else went to shit. Whatever was going on in my life, I knew I had this show in my corner, making me laugh, making me cry, making me feel okay about my place in the universe.

Bisexual lesbian

by

Dajenya

I am not just bisexual

I am a lesbian

I am not just a lesbian

I am a bisexual lesbian

Some say this is a contradiction

and I’m just trying to confuse terms

Yes, these are confusing terms

but no more confusing

than trying to hide half the truth.

Some say I’m trying

to make lesbians less visible.

Not so.

I’m trying to make myself

more visible.

I am a lesbian.

I love women.

I love womankind.

I am woman-identified.

I study our hidden past.

I struggle in the present.

I work hard for our future.

I have had love for a woman

deeper than for any man.

I desire for a woman

to be my partner in life.

I love women.

I am a lesbian.

I am bisexual.

I was born this way.

I have loved girls and boys.

I have loved women and men.

I have sought love

where it offered itself.

I have paid the price

of both lifestyles.

I have been bashed

for loving women

and isolated

for loving men.

You speak of privilege–

let me tell you:

the isolation was worse

than the bashing.

Now I make choices.

Am I finding myself

or has society beaten me down?

Today I choose to choose a woman.

I won’t be shut out from my own community that I’ve worked with

ever since Stonewall.

I won’t be told that I don’t belong

in the only world I’ve ever belonged in.

I love women

and I am a lesbian.

and too

I am bisexual

in my history

in my capacities

in my fantasies

in my abilities

in my love for beautiful people

regardless of gender.

I have the right

to claim my lesbianism

And my bisexuality

even if it confuses you.

I am a lesbian.

I am bisexual.

I am a bisexual lesbian.

           Age thirteen.  I am sitting snuggled closely with my four best friends on one of their beds.  In that cool, dusty basement bedroom, we are reading passages of a romance novel aloud, passing the book to the next girl when the reader collapses into giggles.  I giggle, not understanding.  It’s funny, I suppose, though it seems kind of gross.  I suppose I will understand when I am older.

            Age fifteen.  I am sitting at my kitchen table, reading Dear Abby in the newspaper, a break from school before I begin my homework.  A girl my age has written in, saying she feels left behind by her friends, by their incomprehensible interest in boyfriends and sex.  I read ahead eagerly to Abby’s response – perhaps she has the answer to what’s different about me.  Abby says not to worry, that we are only “late bloomers.”  I am disappointed.  I suppose I will understand when I am older.

            Age seventeen.  I am sitting on the couch in my family room with my three closest friends.  It is the last summer of us; we all leave for college in the fall.  I am listening to all their stories about the boys they’ve dated, the boys they’ve fooled around with, the boys they’ve slept with.  I am the only virgin left in the group.  They reassure me, telling me my time will come.  I do not tell them that I never want it to come, because that feeling bothers me.  I am beginning to seriously worry now that something has gone terribly wrong with me; that I am somehow broken inside.  Suppose I do not understand when I am older?

            Age nineteen.  I am sitting on my bed in my college dorm room, left alone by my now ex-boyfriend.  Although the break-up itself went better than I expected, I am still deeply disturbed, worried for myself.  It was the idea of sex that killed this short-lived relationship.  My hatred of his touch had seeped into every interaction I had with him.  Something must be seriously wrong with me.  How can it be that something that comes so naturally to everyone else is so repulsive to me, only to me?  Suppose I still do not understand, though now I am older?

            Age nineteen.  I am sitting on the worn couch in the common room, on the phone with my friend who transferred, trying to explain to her why I had to break up with the boy she was so eager for me to date.  She asks if I have ever considered that I might be asexual.  I tell her, I’ve joked with that word for ages, it doesn’t mean anything.  She tells me, it does.  She tells me, Google it.  I hang up, and I do just that.  Suppose I may never have to understand when I am older?

            Age nineteen.  I am sitting on the common room couch still, hungrily reading the entire content of a website called AVEN: Asexuality Visibility and Education Network.  I suddenly suppose that I will never understand, no matter how old I get.

teazug:

Okay everyone (but especially guys), the fabulous CN Lester is doing a series of videos on singing, especially for trans men, on or off T…

Massive recommendation coming from me… Please share this everywhere you can