chattercrow:

look at me, doodling my dumb feelings again

I get really annoyed when people say that being confused about my identity is ‘special snowflake-y’ and that I’m just trying to make myself different. I don’t think these people have considered how incredibly difficult it is to not know what category you fit into, especially in a world that expects everyone to fit neatly into these little boxes. I don’t know who I should date, which dorm I should live in, what pronouns I should be called by, which sports team I should play on, or even which bathroom to use. I don’t feel like I really fit in the group I was ‘born into’ - and yet the other group doesn’t quite fit either.

Basically, it sucks, and I would have to be completely crazy to actually choose to feel this way.

It’s difficult to realize that identities are more fluid than most people think, especially when you lie in between labels. Gender and sexuality have always been hard to define.

acetrainerbecca:

A Quick Guide By Ace Trainer Becca

• Join your local gay rights group. If you are in high school, join your GSA. If you’re in university, join your school’s LGBTQ* group. If you’re out of school, find a chapter of GLAAD or GLSEN, or privately run group. Can’t find one? Make your own!
• Donate…

lgbtqnews:

After an investigation into internet cafes and “suspicious places” across the country, police raided a cafe, arresting 215 gay and lesbians citizens. The details of the story are sparse, but unfortunately this news is far from unprecedented in a country that late last arrested eleven transgender people for “imitating the opposite sex” and arresting ten gay teenagers for practicing “Satanic rituals.” check out a snippet of the original story from The Kuwait Times below by clicking “Read More.”

Read More

norsegays:

astrolope:

People being angry about ~dem gays~ on Target’s Facebook.

I just want to give my two cents on this and tell you a story.

A couple weeks ago, I was hired at Target. I have a job at Target. Not a big deal right?

It is a big deal because i’m a transman. 

It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that it’s hard for me, my brothers, and sisters to get a job. There are legal restraints regarding the job and if you don’t pass, it’s hard to be taken seriously at a job interview.

Right on the application, it asks what your preferred name is. It also asks if there is anything that target should know. I put the fact that I am a transman, expecting not to get a call because usually when you put that down, people will throw out the application. I got TWO interviews.

At the interview, they asked me about it. I told them I am on hormones and they told me that they didn’t care. Not in the sense that they don’t emotionally care, but that it didn’t matter. I was male and that’s all that mattered. They also told me that they give sex same couples benefits in states that do not recognize them as a married couple.

At my job orientation, I was not misgendered once. Even my supervisors who weren’t sure of my gender avoided pronoun use, which I found only happens when you’ve had pronoun training. They gave me a name tag with my preferred name and didn’t ask questions. I felt safe and respected, which is huge for a trans* person.

TLDR: Target is amazing not just for the LGB, but also the T. Shop there for the rest of your life.

thepoojaproject:

I know I am little late on this. This makes me so happy. Things are starting to change.

http://www.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/2012_BuyersGuide.pdf

Support the corporations that treat their workers right!

facesofequality:

Faces of Equality! We are starting a new project called Faces of Equality. You may have seen something similar around Tumblr or Facebook but this is our version. Basically, we want you to submit your…

Please have a read :)

transitiontransmission:

Inside the cage, Fox was free.

Outside, she was caged.

The past month had plunged Fox back into depression, after she became the first openly transgender athlete inmixed martial arts and the most prominent in a professional sport since the tennis player Renée Richards in the 1970s. Fox did not control the timing of the revelation, which came in a Sports Illustrated article, and could not control the backlash that resulted, the harsh words from Hulk Hogan, the hateful comments of the fighter Matt Mitrione, the confusion voiced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s champion Ronda Rousey.

In April, Fox watched the basketball players Brittney Griner and Jason Collins tell the world they were gay and receive what seemed like overwhelming public support. Collins’s announcement, Fox wrote in an e-mail, left her “proud and happy” and a “tad bit envious.” That was more like what she had expected for her experience, and she lingered on the topic of reporters who dug into her fighting licenses and personal background, who asked what has become her story’s fundamental question: should someone born a man be allowed to fight women?

At a restaurant in the Chicago suburbs, strangers approached Fox, recognizing her from a recent CNN appearance, and their words, which were supportive, only added to a discomfort that commingles with fear. On one hand, Fox does not want anybody to know where she lives or what her daughter’s last name is. And on the other, she has accepted this ambassadorship, even if it means she is less a sports pioneer than a symbol to be analyzed and debated, thrust into a spotlight that singes her psyche.

“I want the public to know how it feels, the fear of being scrutinized, of being outed,” Fox said. “The fear of what happens when you come out and the media puts you under a microscope. It’s crippling. You get lost.”

That was most apparent at a Panda Express restaurant last month near her training center, where Fox, 37, fought back tears as she tried to explain what she did not yet understand. She wanted her life back, but her recent declaration rendered that impossible and resurrected emotions she had for years tried to bury along with her past.

breakthecitysky:

Here is the thing I can’t stop thinking about with what’s happened here in Minnesota over the course of the past week: the display of support in the Twin Cities was staggering.  The level of f*cks not given to those who might be offended by this acknowledgement of equal rights under the law was amazing.

But mostly, mostly.  I think about a queer kid, riding in the back of her parents’ car seeing the city lit up like this.  Maybe she hasn’t come out yet, maybe she’s been bullied, at home, at school, for being who she is.  I can only imagine what seeing this would mean.  And then I get teary and proud all over again.  

Way to go, Minnesota.  Who’s next?