LOVE YOUR BODY
LOVE YOUR GENDER MORE
CREATE
PARTAKE
FORNICATE
TELL YOUR FRIENDS YOU LOVE THEM
TRY
TRY HARDER
TRY YOUR FUCKING HARDEST
IF ALL ELSE FAILS
RETURN TO THE EARTH
LEAVE YOUR SMUDGED FINGERPRINTS ON THE PROTECTIVE GLASS OF THE WORLD
a comic about trying to return to being a single celled organism (described in alt)
Love that time I brought up how "transvestite" used to be a term du jur (not the only term, but a well-known term) before it fell out of favor for transexual and then transgender and was immediately given the "um actually it's always been a bad word sweaty :)" routine when like
[Image Description: the Wikipedia page for Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries". The opening paragraph says "Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) was a gay gender non-conforming street activist organization founded in 1970 by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, subculturally famous New York City drag queens of color. STAR was a radical political collective that also..." the screencap cuts off the rest of the article. End ID]
To drive the point home, it later changed its name Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries to reflect the changing terminology preferences but Jesus fucking Christ learn your damn history
(This is also why terfs and other transphobes claiming that Marsha P. Johnson was "only" a transvestite in order to de-legitimize trans involvement in queer history, activism, and liberation is such bullshit because that was the fucking term back then and had Marsha not been murdered there's good chance she'd be calling herself transgender now. Or not, there are trans elders who still call themselves transvestite and proudly so.)
The word was coined by the German LGBT pioneer Magnus Hirschfeld in 1910 and was used as an umbrella term for anyone who’d wear clothes that didn’t fit the gender they were assigned at birth.
He’d also issue so-called “transvestite certificates” for them that allowed them to wear those clothes in public without being arrested for public nuisance.
There was a magazine called “Das 3. Geschlecht” (The 3rd Sex) aimed at them, which was the first trans magazine in history. You can read the English translation of three of its issues here.
The lesbian magazine “Die Freundin” (The Girlfriend) also openly included transvestites and came with an insert called “Der Transvestit” at times (The Transvestite).
Guys this was a correct term IN MY LIFETIME. I'm only in my forties, come on. Remember your history, I'm begging.
Something Good – Negro Kiss is a short film from 1898 of a couple kissing and holding hands. It is believed to depict the earliest on-screen kiss involving African Americans and is known for departing from the prevalent and purely stereotypical presentation of racist caricature in popular culture at the time it was made.
“There seemed to be something a lot more intimate and having more to do with self-presentation. And that’s unlike anything I had seen from that period when all moving picture images of African Americans were through a white lens and are distortions, misrepresentations, or pseudo anthropological. And this is none of that.”
Pretty and priceless, sweet delight, I hope you are well and doing alright, and that your dreams are as lovely as the moonlit night, and that you wake to the world well rested and fair, so we can show that we do care
injecting this into my brain before I have to wake up early tomorrow morning !!!! blasting it back to you too, please enjoy your day!
Miss Piggy’s Treasury of Art Masterpieces from the Kermitage Collection is a picture book featuring sixteen (minus the “The Birth of Venus” parody) different muppet parodies of famous artwork, edited by Henry Beard and illustrated by John E. Barrett, and published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1984.
A majority of the illustrations were originally from the Miss Piggy’s Art Masterpiece Calendar which were all reprinted with commentary from Miss Piggy herself and new additions that expanded on the “Kermitage Collection” from the calendar.
illustrations continued:
Henri Rousseau. The Sleepy Zootsy.
Rembrant van Rijn. Arisfroggle Contemplating the Bust of a Twerp.
Jan Vermeer. Young Lady Adorning Herself with Pearls (and Why Not?).
Grant Wood. American Gothique.
Pablo Picasso. Pig Before a Mirror.
"The faggots never tire of fucking with the men's minds. Once all the faggots let their hair grow long, wore necklaces made of silver and shells and clothes of colorful, elaborate fabrics. They looked so stunning that the men over-looked their principles and began to look stunning also. When the men all looked like faggots, the faggots cut their hair, put on black leather and looked like the men used to look. The men were annoyed and pretended not to notice. Growing bored with basic black leather, the faggots began to elaborate. They wore black fish-net stockings and high heels with their black leather jackets. They carefully sewed imitation rhinestones all over their black leather pants. They wore feather boas as they rode their motorcycles through the devastated city. They wore flowing gold lamé gowns and work boots with their short hair and dirty fingernails. They drank beer and swore, in velvet ropes and furs. They sipped champagne and talked refined in paint-splattered blue denim. The men did not want to look at any of this. And when they had to, they became confused and petulant and unpleasant, which pleased the faggots."
-Larry Mitchell, The Faggots and Their Friends Between the Revolutions, 1977
there are days that it is hard, and unfair, and some horrible part of me wishes i could have been born in a different world. i love being queer, i hate how others react to it. when i first came out at 15, my mom whispered: please don't say that. your life would be so much harder.
it is harder.
it is also a tuesday, walking my dog. we are both skiving off of work, and yes both of us have dyed hair and pronouns. mine is patchy - it was my first time trying bleach; i didn't have enough. theirs is a resilient toadstool green. a little girl comes up to us and asks um, excuse me? is your hair real? 'cause jason says you're a fairy.
it is sunday brunch, all of us talking over each other, overfull on love. she is trying out a new name today, and we made her a cake with today's name scrawled in shaky purple letters. she laughs so much she cries and then gets frosting in her hair. someone young at a different table keeps giving us these large, wide eyes: the same look we have all been on the other side of. the kind that says, breathless: wait, is that possible?
it is a half-fight in a supermarket because he loves "dance moms" and says abby's tiktok is funny and meanwhile i think the children in that show should be allowed to sue abby lee miller for child abuse. i tell him that it led to the casual acceptance of child harassment for mainly adult views; and then i am standing, suddenly, in someone else's thrown soda. there's a white lady standing there, furious, saying something about hell-on-earth. i had forgotten i was wearing stuff with pride colors. and then it is this: he had just been casually arguing with me - and within an instant, he squares his shoulders and goes after her like i am his sister
on saturday i sat in a circle while beca played with my hair and we were all over 30 and we laughed about how much happier we are being this old, how much more we appreciate our community. 25 minutes from now, we will be on stage to dance in baggy beige clothing, but for now we look on with envy to the dancers in loud-and-bright buttondowns. where are they getting these shirts! i cry, distraught. everyone laughs. one of our friends has a mushroom witch hat. this would have been cringey in high school, probably. instead we are all delighted with each other; happy just to be here and alive and moving
it's that last week my new friends cried with joy for me when they heard i'm getting top surgery. every so often i have the honor of being the first person someone feels comfortable enough to tell. i'm trying to make long fluttery butterfly wings to wear to pride; but i don't know anything about fabric or dye, so my friends have been sending me their personal advice.
i think in a different poem i would talk about how sometimes you walk into a room and put the mask back on. but i'm sleepy and my whole brain is fuzzy so i think in this one, it's a monday, and my dog and i took a nap on a couch, and i had missed texts from friends. i used to wake up lonely. i think this poem is about walking into a room and seeing someone and just knowing, the way you just-know-sometimes, and then giving them that little smile, and seeing them light up with joy and relief. it is how we always seem to be able to find each other in a crowded room. how we always seem to make friends with each other before even we know-it-to-be-true. it is saying: we're very different people; but i belong to you.
it is harder, yes. but it comes with a built-in family.
6/6/2023
when i’m depressed, i tend to forget things. like the times i hugged someone and they hugged back tighter, the times i couldn’t stop laughing and smiling from ear to ear. the thoughtful compliments i received, the genuine looks of surprise and joy i helped put on someone’s face, and the days where nothing important really happened, but i felt happy. but forgetting these things doesn’t mean they never happened. they existed once, and they’re proof that even though i haven’t felt myself for a while, some days in my life can be pretty nice, and there will be more days like that in the future.
Girl with Pearl Earring, at the museum - Johannes Vermeer
i just can’t wait to wake up in the middle of the night and see my love sleeping next to me
never let anyone convince you that your excitement isn't beautiful. what an incredible thing it is, to notice and be overcome by any bright spot in this too-dark world.
it doesn't matter what you're excited about, how small it seems to other people, your joy deserves to grow as big as it can. nurture it. help it grow strong so that when you are hurting your joy can lend you its strength.
Not to sound like a fuckin hippie but please for the love of god start noticing and appreciating the natural world around you. You don’t have to go hike the entire Appalachian trail or anything and I get that not everyone has access to the outdoors for various reasons, but just fucking … look around you when you’re outside. Notice the sky and the sun and the birds and creatures. Start caring about them. I’m begging you.
being kissed in your sleep and being pulled closer within cuddles is such a top tier form of affection
