self-isolating LGBTs of SPRING 2020

Not even pleasuring myself these days.

Butt stuff, in this economy?

I pleasured myself last night!

Oh my God I m on a pleasure break too Morbz

Congratulations Alfred!! A head above the rest!

replying to surm from the last thread:

It’s gotten to the point where literally at the grocery store today I was checking out guys with face masks on

this is so otm. eyebrows have never looked so appealing.

since our gyms were forced to close, all the fit dudes have been forced to do their training topless in the local parks, and every single day i have been just completely dying.

went on a bike ride over the weekend, spotted loooots of hot dudes jogging/biking

nyc pride cancelled, presuming the others will follow suit

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/nyc-lgbtq-pride-march-canceled-first-time-half-century-n1187761

Twin Cities Pride already announced its postponement.

I know, I didn’t expect for the pride cancellations to get me down but I do feel it

Doesn't Pride celebrate cops and other awful people these days?

We're all ignoring the worst thing about Pride: it's outdoors during the summer.

I enjoy plenty of aspects of Pride, but skipping it one year wouldn’t bug me much ... if there was anything else to do for months on either side of it.

Haven't gone in decades... all that awful music.

Folsom Street East is too crowded as well

To be honest it’s not even the activities I will miss but the sense of joy and reflection in the air

always been thrilled hearing pride motorcycles/percussion/crowd noise echoing through the streets even if I was not in immediate proximity

For sure, same :(

this is pretty rare but i'm craving social activity today

like i would love to be on a beach with a bunch of handsome gay men listening to top 40 radio and being entertained by endless "witty repartee."

i think the most realistic approximation of that would be to go to the park with my boyfriend, scowl at all the straight couples with little babies and goo at the baby ducklings.

I’m going to a park in a little bit to meet up with my pal and his husband. Baking some blondies for the occasion.

Not being able to swim in a large natural or artificial body of water this summer is really going to be the pits - we’ve already had some 90+ temps in the past month

woah we just made blondies last night! are they the washington post ones? they're even better the next day ;)

yeah i'm going to be breaking the rules on the 'no swimming' thing at some point and dunking in a lake

I LOVE BLONDIES

and yes RE: temps i have to reinvest in an AC and new fans for the house ... $$$

blondies are totally coming back!

Real question: how much park cruising do you think is going on right now?

Not asking for myself, or even for a friend... I've never hooked up in a park! I've played watchdog for friends who have, though. I'm more just curious. I know a couple men who have confessed to me that they've been doing it and I'm curious if this is more common than I'd imagine.

map: OG joy of cooking recipe from the ‘60s. didn’t rise as much as i wanted, still good tho!

I live near a park that has a rep for being, or maybe once being, a big cruising spot - have not witnessed anything of the sort there either before or after march 2020

I'm relieved I at least got fucked two months ago.

we spent some time at a park today and there were at least two obvious cruisers

we spent hours outside, went to one park, then another, back to the first park, ordered thai take out. admiring trees, creeks, birds, oh and shirtless men. we sat directly next to the volleyball sandboxes and watched the show - not obvious at all lol.

i just can't imagine picking someone up in a park, it feels so 80s! but i did get a beej in a park once

"Real question: how much park cruising do you think is going on right now?"

I exercise around Buena Vista park in SF every morning at around 3-5 AM since this all started, so I won't have to deal with people on the street. The first few nights after the shut down there were a lot of gay people cruising the park. I honestly felt bad for some of the little short guys cruising the park at 3:00 AM when I went by them, I honestly expected them to have their heads bashed in. It seemed super unsafe to me. Four days after the shutdown in SF started, I have not seen anyone, but I have seen a few cars seemingly waiting for people to go into the park. Maybe earlier in the night, but it seems people are behaving.

rly can't believe ppl still do that! dang!

I meant that to be in a positive light, it was way, way, way down :), if it didn't come across that way.

i miss y'all

Hi clouds what are you doing right now?

i'm four days late but rn i'm sitting with edwin waiting for burritos and watching him play animal crossing <3

hi everybody!

hi!

#sexstarved

HI

i miss you guys too, literally "ILX" has been on my to do list for a week, no joke.
i guess my update would be that i've officially been out of romance for so long that i've resorted to erotic chat on the interwebs. oops!

hospitals suck, guys

i need movies, not tuna sandwiches and laxatives

💜 Find any good movies love?

I watched La Cérémonie again last night -- a movie for our times if any.

preoccupied with certainty of spinal surgery later this month now. asking y'all I don't end up at Full FDR!

Good luck, Morbs, you happy warrior.

blechhhh

stand up for morbs

i continue to hold that la ceremonie is a more effective film than parasite, though almost surely not as stylishly shot

OK so how is everyone doing? What a blindingly weird year.

I just spent the last hour re-reading the Queer threads from years past and it's like... so much was happening in 2018, 2019! So little seems to be happening right now.

My ex, who I adore, and who is great, got really hostile and awful to me post-breakup. I chalk it up to "he really loved me and this breakup is hard" and "he's insecure about my new fuckbuddy and the sight of me moving on with my life creatively", not mad at him, but I cut off contact with him, perhaps indefinitely. Sad we couldn't make it work! I will miss his friendship and I will miss the dog.

My current fuckbuddy, our relationship kind of took a boyfriend-by-necessity turn as a result of COVID and quarantining and it quickly became clear to us both that this was way too quick and we aren't compatible for long periods of cohabitation so we ended things for a bit and are now, like, dating again, as best as you can in these dreadful circumstances. He is so, so sweet, it's weird to be dating who is kind instead of spiky.

It's been pretty interesting to be in a position of "trying to sell a record" with COVID and all this protesting, I've kind of run out of musical steam, and I'm toying with the idea of writing a pile of new songs, but also toying with the idea of turning to writing sci-fi instead.

Hi, FGTI!

Blindingly weird. I have for months now had a low-level panic set into my neck and suprasternal notch that sometimes flares down but never goes away. Initially COVID-related, it sure didn't help being in the (initial) epicenter of a nationwide revolution. If there's one thing you need to know about Minnesotans and in particular Minneapolitans, it's that we love being thought of as exceptional, but absolutely never enjoy being the center of attention. (And then working in news, I naturally have a full second wave of COVID panic with so many of my co-workers having been out in teeming petrie dishes of humanity.)

I'm still getting married ... which, after four months of him working from home and us otherwise spending nearly our entire social life with just each other and still wanting to go through with it, must be the right decision. We did realize we can't pull of a destination wedding, however small in scope (it is just going to be us and our immediate families), because there's no point going to a destination if there's nothing open to enjoy. So we're getting married in the no-longer-burning city of Minneapolis, three months from tomorrow. We'll renew at Martha's Vineyard whenever, if ever, things return back to normal while our parents are still alive.

That's fantastic news, congratulations!

Yeah, I've been feeling like quarantining is kind of "make or break" for relationships. Some of my coupled friends are having a ball! My own apartment is spacious-for-one, cramped-for-two, so it was impossible to really get a read on our co-habitation compatibility

My fiance and I have discovered that, when the world's ending, sometimes we're OK splitting cocktails and watching lascivious Richard Dawson-era episodes of Family Feud.

That's something I didn't know I'd appreciate in a partner, but here we are.

The quarantine definitely accelerated my new relationship to the point where I’m now calling him my partner

!!!!!!! :D :D

xp Also, you're delving into partner cocktail quality time, I saw!

There should be a new word for happiness!

You're something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings.

Wow DJP that is so great!!!

Yeah, congrats to you!

SURVEY SAYS

Well I'm happy to hear that, Dan!

:-D

Thank you, everyone! I’m still kind of reeling with how quickly this has all gone but I’m super happy

hey congrats DJP! (also loving the cocktail recipes)

Let’s see, 2020: I got laid off from one of my jobs, but the silver lining is I was made a FT benefited employee at the one I didn’t get laid off from. Being around my husband more or less 24/7 has been nbd mostly but I am pretty thankful that we have separate spaces for working.

I am also in the worst shape physically that I’ve been in for some time and it’s honestly bumming me out. Before all this happened I was getting into a regular exercise routine and going to a boxing class that I loved 2x a week, but COVID threw all that out the window, plus my diet has mostly gone to shit too. I’m occasionally doing online workouts but it’s hard for me to feel motivated without other ppl working out nearby/an instructor guiding me. And yeah, whatever, gay man can’t go to gym and is sad about it news at 11 but it’s been kind of a drag on my overall mental health.

In the meantime I have occasional baking projects, self-guided Italian lessons, and some personal genealogical research keeping me busy on top of work. I do really, really miss non-screen-mediated sociality something fierce though. I hate not hugging my friends.

holy shit DJP has a partner and Eric is engaged, where have I BEEN!! Congrats all around!!!

I have been largely absent from ILX for a few years and I'm friends with most of y'all on fb but:

I've been dating my current boyfriend for 2 years, we met thru Scruff when I was visiting my college bestie in Boston, things have been going super well and I have been learning a lot about relationships and my ability to navigate them (in a good way!!), we visit each other abt once a month but I came to visit him in April and have just stayed here since then and our cohabitation has gone so much better than I imagined. It's weird fake-living in (or rather just outside of) Boston, I miss Philly a lot, but it's been a v necessary experience re: living with a partner (which I have never done before) and learning to let go of itty bitty bullshit (which I am not v great at), and it's given me a lot of hope for the future

I've been doing IT at a university for the past 4 years with THE WORST most cagey squirrely lazy absentee boss you can imagine who literally just doesn't do his job. I still don't know what he even does after 4 years of working there, and me and his boss just kind of quietly pick up all his slack, his boss flatly refuses to acknowledge what a shitter he is despite the entire dept of abt 60 ppl telling him fairly regularly how awful he is. Basically our office has 0 accountability, very bad ppl are allowed to flourish, expectations for acceptable performance are set so low and if ppl don't meet them, the response is to just lower expectations even more. I could go on and on and on about how awful he is but ANYWAY after years of suffering I have finally gotten a new job elsewhere at the same university, and I start on Monday, and I could not be more excited, him and his boss have been so disengaged the last 2 weeks and it's just reaffirmed what a good decision this is (the latest is that boss's boss, who's #2 in command in the dept, rescheduled our very final meeting so that he could host bingo at an office-wide zoom happy hour. they still haven't discussed any documentation or processes with me and my last day is tomorrow).

happy you've been busy and mostly happy steve! as it's summer, i was just thinking about my days out at concerts in central park and my time with you was warmly remembered. 2010 iirc?

oh my god yeah it was.... 10 years ago, like to the month. Those were such a blast.

except for the time I was a naive goober and pissed off St3phen "Big Baby" M4lkmus and it made it hard to listen to Pavement for several years but now I just think it's funny and absurd

oh i love that story.

god stevie i'm so happy to hear about your new job.

i'm waiting a few weeks to start a ft w benefits. they hired me but whoops the state needs to do budget cuts first. in the meantime i'm collecting the cares dollars and basically not doing shit every day except for what i want to do it's wonderful. also i went in too fast on a relationship last year and... this time it's smiles for miles. so pure and easy. it makes doing work on myself worth it.

donna rouge i know about the workouts. it's hard and it sucks. hehe

Loving the positive relationship news from from Eric, DJP (!!), Stevie!

We effectively moved back in with my in-laws for the duration of COVID. They’ve both suffered health troubles in the past year, and so we are here to help with groceries and whatnot. It’s...challenging, at times, and I miss my house, but the time afforded has been good for the dissertation. CESB—the Canadian student fund—has been a lifesaver; no teaching jobs in the summer (and fall?) means it only would have been a matter of time before I had to go out there and find work among the public. I do have a course (on Gay Life in the 21st Century!) lined up for the Winter semester, though.

I’ve been virtually attending an amazing weekly film series (viewing/discussion) that the Denver Public Library that has been putting on through the quarantine: watched Dial M For Murder, Play Time, Lured, House by the River, Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast and Cleo from 5 to 7 so far, with The Hitch-hiker, Hanna Bi and 8 1/2 coming up. They’ve given me something to look forward to each week during all this, which has been most helpful.

I love dial m for murder. grace kelly is so convincing in it.

Morbz you're a rock, keep fucking shit up.

great to hear so many updates from you guys *_* it warms my heart. as for me, my x has been playing house with his new squeeze since the 'tine hit and I still haven't met him yet. it's all fine. I decided at the outset of singledom that I wasn't going to have any wallowed sappy moments and for the most part I've followed thru, but the pandemic's broken me down once or twice, admittedly. on the plus side, being on my own has completely removed me from the responsibility of answering to anyone, and I've finally built up the wherewithal to tell my wack family to fuck off after a lifetime of misery, so I'm feelin' myself just a little bit.

also it's summer on Saturday so let the best title win

show all messages (69 of them)

if y'all haven't sampled DJP's cocktail recipes, you're missing out. I discovered the Jasmine.

i'll stick to beer, cock, tail

if I ever drink again

hello gays.

well, things have gone back and forth here— first few months of Covid were peachy, tbh. i got a lot of practice self-isolating and being alone last year, when i had to do so because of my low immunity...

during those months, i finished two manuscripts, read a lot, finished teaching two classes online (pretty seamless move for me, if really annoying), and so on.

only in the past month have i started to go a little insane, and it's been showing and wearing on Theo and our whole dynamic. i realized yesterday that since i finished the last book i was writing, i haven't been writing much, just reading and prepping for this online poetry workshop i'm teaching...so i might just need to write in order to keep myself sane? who knows. going to spend time today doing that.

i have been cruising a lot in the grocery store and on nature walks. i've become much more of an ass man, i've noticed.

also, i've basically quit drinking.

sending all of you good feeling.

oh hey neighb!!!!

table and i are neighbors now btw!!!!!!!!!!!

oh wau

omg hi everyone

for summer thread title i wish i could nominate eric's write-up for "haven't you heard" by patrice rushen in slant dot com's 100 best dance songs of all time redux article from 3 days ago, which is a great list (and eric's writing is the highlight).

related to that, does anyone else think about going out to dance and how that's not happening for a long time and cry about it?

(then i think about how much i'd have to hear "stupid love" this summer and i'm happy again)

hey stevie! hope all's well in Boston.

good to hear from you, tabes dear

I love "Stupid Love" and I think abt dancing a lot, but specifically I think abt how much collective joy there will be the first time I go to one of my friend's gigs or to one of the cool queer techno parties

omgggggg it's going to be wild

map
I miss it so much
Like all I wanna do is call a car to the clurb and get too drunk
I miss my queers

yeah *sigh*

going to a friend's cabin this weekend and already got all the trax for the dance party

Not just because I wanna dance but because it was like a way of dealing with shit, ya know?

Mm so nicccceeeeeeeeee jealous ::///

Like am I not going to have sex all year? I wonder?

love y'all
i'm feeling v happy and powerful lately
fantasizing abt moving into an old rv
might move back to fl later this year
lately all i do apart from work is listen to techno and play animal crossing lol

table i wish we had customers like you at my lame grocery store

i wish i could be a customer at your grocery store.

i really strangely LOVED working in a grocery store, except they didn't pay enough. the work itself was satisfying and i hardly ever paid for vegetables because i was the guy who cleaned the greens and managed the stuff that was going to compost/horse feed/still good for humans, but not for sale. i also loved my co-workers. to be honest, if they paid better, we probably would have stayed in California for a few more years.

we're going camping for July 4th in a state forest that has a no fireworks rule, so that's nice.

Fireworks have been rampant in Brooklyn, people are going crazy because of pandemic… But yr plan for the fourth sounds great though :-) :-) you know, my friend Claire worked in a bagel shop on Long Island, and I was always jealous of that. I’m also here to tell you that pandemic financial and unemployment woes r real and I don’t like them. I’m also fresh off a couple of shots of whiskey after a freakkkkky day so totally recognize that I am not making much sense right now

Clouds I’m very glad to hear about your happy powerful feeling

Yeah the fireworks this year in Philly have been intense.

we’re going camping in idyllwild tomorrow, very much looking forward to getting out of the city for a spell

there’s usually a weeks-long lead up to 4th of july fireworks in LA, but it does seem a bit more pronounced this year. they’re definitely louder than usual, but they usually subside by the time we go to bed

I have no sense of it being a hot NYC summer, bcz except for one ambulance ride i've been indoors since May 8.

However, things are looking up medically, and it seems quite possible I'll be sprung from the hospital SOMEtime this month.

mazel!

glad things are lookin up Dr M!

Julius’ in NYC (the site of what I’m pretty sure was the largest gayLXor gathering to date) is in trouble - gofundme here: https://gf.me/u/ydjrdq

oh damn... they were closed and like boarded up on pride which was weird bcuz all the other bars around there were open to ppl

you've been in the hospital a long time Morbs

my last time out...was at Julius' in March.

..which i skipped, as i was already transitioning to lockdown.

I remember a lovely evening at Julius!

now I reread The Golden Bowl and fantasize about assignments on staircases.

That's good news, Morbs!

thx dear, and happy birthday (32 again?).

The gayest show on WFMU played way too much Sylvester this week, but there was a surprise at the end.

https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/94299

they were closed and like boarded up on pride

It's a noise issue bcz the clientele at Julius' needs to shout to be heard from 6 feet away.

I had no idea Sylvester sang on Herbie's "Magic Number"!

well, there's my present

The clientele at Julius' needs to be closed and boarded up on Pride.

Eric! Happy birthday, welcome home, and we-who-are-about-to-die-salute-you!

So many quiet qualities.

Morbzzz I am so happy to hear that. Hang tough these coming weeks
I have to say, I have never been able to get over the smell of fried food at Julius
But people like it so I go!
I’m holing up big-time this weekend, trying to recharge after way too much thinking this week. My phone is off and anyone who needs me can take. a. seat.

Let freedom ring!

https://vmagazine.com/article/nycs-oldest-gay-bar-may-close/

Noooooo my favourite hang-out. That and The Townhouse, was always my favourite joint to listen to show tunes and smile while old businessmen bought me drinks

i am slipsliding into the core demographic there

They're selling T-shirts on their website and I just emailed them to confirm they're still currently selling them (they are)

https://www.juliusbarny.com/

Queer public sex is at the heart of a culture war b/t radical queers vs reformists. Under the surface, anti-public sex views are steeped in racism, classism, gentrification, and police surveillance.

Why public sex is integral to queerness. For @dailydot.https://t.co/KVj3Qhs8fu

— Ana Valens 🏴 (@acvalens) July 17, 2020

o boy

lol is all I can say

anti-public sex views are steeped in racism

I keep typing and deleting and honestly all I feel comfortable saying here is: o rly

😆 same

I have to put my ex’s pictures away tomorrow
It’s been almost a year
We are still good friends so it hasn’t felt that weird to have them up until now
It’s not exactly that I am heartbroken. it’s just he’s moving on so fast. I guess it’s the closeness of such a good friend that I miss the most. He was my family. And the fear that he just didn t love me as much, there’s shame. I feel like a cliché, letting myself get sad because he’s on a beach somewhere with his new boyfriend. overall I’ve been fine, I just didn’t expect my first year as a single person to be in lockdown. I need to get creative. Truckin’ on.

I mean, I don't really get what's so lol about the public sex thing, but maybe that's just me.

And I should say: I am all for public sex, and have participated in such a number of times

They mention in that article that "all public sex is quasi-public sex" and I like that.

I don't like that they try and pawn off anti-public sex views as being heteronormative or a product of complacent capitalism or w/e. Maybe it's the case but I don't actually know anybody who is arguing that?

I feel like there are four environments:

1. Places where nudity is discouraged and the atmosphere is non-sexual (the workplace, public transit)
2. Places where nudity is discouraged and the atmosphere is sexual (a bar, the dance floor)
3. Places where nudity is encouraged and the atmosphere is non-sexual (the nude beach, the changeroom)
4. Places where nudity is encouraged and the atmosphere is sexual (the bathhouse)

For me, it does feel like a violation of consent when these lines are blurred. I don't want to suddenly find myself in a sexual environment without agreeing to be in that environment! This doesn't feel like surveillance or capitalism or whatever... to me, suddenly being exposed to "people fucking" in an environment where fucking is not encouraged feels about as cool and OK as a stranger exposing themselves to me on a subway

I'm pretty sure I've had all my public sex in "expected" environments.

fgti, I get yr point. But I also think that in many communities, there's still a lot of stigma around homosexuality, so much so that "public sex," even if it is hidden or obscured, is among the only safe ways for people to get off. I think of the cruising that happens among mostly Black and Latino men in Buena Vista Park in SF, for example.

That said, I personally believe that if yr in the Folsom Gulch area of that same city, don't be all shocked if you see some dudes sucking dicks in an alley or on a stoop. And don't go to the Powerhouse or the Hole in the Wall lol.

Most of the instances of public sex I've participated in have been in queer cruising bars, BDSM festivals, and in the woods.

Oh no, for sure. There are some sexy bushes by the nude beach in Toronto and it's like... that's the place where the bushes are sexy! Be warned.

ditto the Central Park Ramble (at least 20 years ago)

just don't scare the birdwatchers

oh shit y'all I forgot to hype this but my boyfriend's film festival is all online this year and can be streamed from anywhere in the US, and like yeah I'm his bf and wanna promote his shit and all but I've been poking around the lineup and it is an embarrassment of riches, there is an absurd amount of awesome-looking shit

https://www.wickedqueer.org/festival

Very cool

My ex from a decade ago, with whom I remain amicably but distantly intimate, is calling again. Ostensibly he wants us to "walk" together; I suspect he wants to fuck. It's been four months. I'd like to as a pipe-clearing exercise but, gad, dunno if I want THIS again (THIS meaning the throwback gesture; I'm sure he's been a hermit).

we don't get many opportunities now

Seriously
I have a friend down the block who is great and all but
UGG I’m getting back on Grindr now and I’m not looking forward to it

Question: what is a good thread to ask about how to be a good parent to an LGBTQ teenager?

If it is not this one, I will go to a different one; if a thread needs to be created I can do so. Thanks.

Hi! I’m sure there are some good parenting threads out there, I don’t know which ones would apply but others may be able to weigh in. That said, we used to all be teenagers with parents so feel free to put any questions or thoughts here ♥️

I just miss cock

honestly would love to have the experience of being a good parent to an LGBTQ teenager

rather than men, yes xp

I understand my friend

I had changed my name to Doggie on Grindr and I think people think it means the sexual position but that’s not how it was intended, but now I don’t feel like changing it because it always takes me a minute to come up with a new name

I think teenagers need to be loved unreservedly and to feel support for their choices, even if they are wrong. They'll figure it out eventually

so do doggies

Ok. When my daughter was 12 she came out as bisexual. A couple months later she indicated that she was lesbian / biromantic. She turned 13 last month. She's indicated that she now identifies as enby. At each step we've just told her that we're supportive no matter what.

Not a lot has changed in our daily lives. She's had some strictly online and chat-based relationships, as far as we know. But nobody is going anywhere or seeing anybody these days. So a lot of this is pretty theoretical.

The most prominent thing is that she wants to go by a different name. Her birth name is something like Ruby, and she's asked to be called something like Skyler instead. Letting go of her given name (which was carefully chosen) was weird, but we're adjusting. There's no pronoun change requested at this time. She's requested a slightly more neutral wardrobe.

The timing is wwird. Of course we're taking her choices seriously, but we also wish she had the ability to move among her peers more, and to experience relationships and dating and sexuality in a more three-dimensional way than is possible now.

I don't even have a specific question in mind. It's just one of the many things we're going through as a family.

That sounds like a lot of big changes for all of you. And especially now. It seems like you’re being super supportive, which is not the given you’d think it would be. So grading on a curve you’re doing great! I remember when I was in high school and I came out to my family, what I wanted most was to be believed. To be given the confidence that I knew what I wanted, that I knew who I was, even if they couldn’t fully understand. And not to sound totally cliché, but it seems like as much communication, trust and safe space as possible is super important. Navigating romance or any other kind of social connection right now is insane. but i will say that even tho there are ***plenty*** of obstacles and injustices for young people today when it comes to gender and sexuality, looking back on my time in the sun (jfc who am i), I can safely say that there are so many more ideas and people out there that will help your daughter more than there used to be.

And I should’ve prefaced this by saying that I don’t have any parenting experience so I hope you will take my words with a grain of salt. Maybe a spoon of salt.

Hi YMP. I mostly lurk on these threads, but I thought you might appreciate an AFAB perspective. (One thing to keep in mind is that AFAB and AMAB queer experiences are not always perfect analogues or mirror images of one another! Context matters.) I am not a parent, but I have been a 13 year old with a complicated identity (though I had no language back then, for what I was!) Also in the weird position of being friends both with parents my own age raising kids who are turning out to be queer, and hvaing online "fairy godparent" type friendships with young queers in their teens. A couple of suggestions, please disregard if this is stuff you are already doing, but I just thought I'd put it out there.

1) Do research on your own. Learn the language, get a grip of the vocab before it becomes necessary. There's tons of resources out there online. Learn yourself what newer words like "biromantic" or "aromantic" mean. Learn all the different gradations of enby and nonbinary - genderqueer, genderfluid, bigender, agender, etc. Yes, when your child comes out as X, Y or Z, it's good to have the conversation of "OK, do you want to tell me what that means to *you*" - but not having to do a ground-up explainer of common terms is such a relief. It shows respect and caring to learn the stuff.

2) Non-Physical does not mean "Theoretical". I understand why you made the word choice you did (lockdown is particularly brutal for queers of all ages, coming out in the middle of lockdown has got to be a headfuck!) but "Theoretical" has an unintended connotation of "not valid". "Valid" is a really important word for younger queers. Non-physical stuff is valid. Online stuff is valid. You can know you're queer without ever having seen, let alone touched a genital. We are forced to prove the validity of our desires and identities in a way that cis-hets never are. It's not theoretical. It's real and valid. (Also... my experience of people under 20 - they have no concept of 'online' and 'IRL' being separate realities? They are different modes, different rooms in the same house. Stuff that happens online can be as Real as stuff that happens in a room.) Please really, really think through using words like "Theoretical" around your child, because non-valid is the worst thing you can say to a queer child.

3) For many, many AFAB queers, Fluidity *is* the place of queerness. I think this is one of the major differences between AFAB and AMAB queerness, in that for many AMABs, 'coming out' happens as a realisation "Oh, I like boys, I'm gay" and that's pretty much it. For many AFABs, it's a much more mutable, situational, person-based, attraction-based... flow. That is normal. "Lesbian? Bisexual? Heteroflexible? Nonbinary? Wait, no, trans man who digs women but that doesn't make me straight?" This kind of... flexibility of labelling, and travelling through many different experiences is often painted as being somehow inauthentic, or phase-like, rather than the One True Authentic Sexuality that The Gays are supposed to experience? Accept change. Accept fluidity. No snide "oh, that's what we're doing today is it" comments. Just "This is where you are right now, and that's valid!"

4) Acceptance is not just about how you treat your child; it is about how you treat other queer people, and how your child sees you treat or describe or talk about other queer people is 100% the message they will internalise about themselves, no matter what else you say or do. Saying stuff like (just a random example) "Oh, that Miley Cyrus, now she's nonbinary or whatever, what an attention-seeker" is no longer about your feelings about Miley Cyrus, it's about nonbinary identities in general. (This one is dedicated to my own mother, who is 100% supportive of me and my identity, and yet cannot encounter lesbians or trans men without telling me all about how weird and wrong and 'not for her' that whole business is.)

OK, I didn't mean for this to become an essay. My entire London-based queer community, fragile as it always was, has completely disappeared with lockdown, so it turns out I have ~feelings~.

^^^ sooo fucking otm, thank you so much for that. sorry if a lot of this is patronizing or parenting 101, but my non-parental 2¢:

the landscape has changed SO much, I mean I know every generation is different from the last but as an older millennial I feel like there's a way bigger gap btwn millennial and gen z than millennial and gen x. so so so much more communication and exchange of information is done via smartphone, and thus new ideas and concepts evolve much more rapidly than when I was 13 like 20 ago, and to you and I this is "different", like we subconsciously hold our 13-yo experience as the "default" and this new thing is "strange" but to them this IS normal and the default. as Branwell said it's impt to remember that this separation of online/IRL or online being "less authentic" is not how 13yos see the world (not to suggest you're doing that, but I think it's an important foundation to have when thinking through and processing all of the other stuff), and even if there was no COVID they still might not be experiencing dating and sexuality IRL the way that we did

I also want to echo Branwell's sentiment of the importance of your actions over your words, in a sense of yes, you can tell your child how much you support them until the cows come home, but the second you let out an involuntary frustrated sigh or eyeroll or make a subtle comment about someone else, it will undo all of that work. My mom did this and it sucked, loved ME but would let things slip in subtle ways that to an adolescent were clear as day. It's a lot of work to have your guard up at all times but it's important to make a concerted effort to do this as much as possible.

As has also been stated, adolescence is obv full of so much emotional hormonal turmoil and so much self-questioning and identity-searching, and in the contemporary age of smartphones and queerness I imagine people are finding identities a lot more unfamiliar to modern parents than ours were to our parents. Even if you feel like it's "too much" or "just a phase" or whatever, it is CRITICAL that you take their ideas seriously and not just nod along like "ok dear", bcz a 13yo will also pick up on feeling blown off or treated dismissively. they need to work through and process this on THEIR own terms. I think it's good to have a mixture of educating yourself with these new concepts and ideas so you're not relying on them to give you this sort of "gen z sexuality 101" stuff, but to also engage and ask questions of like "what does this mean to YOU" or "are there any changes we can make or things we can do to make you feel comfortable", etc

it sounds like you're already doing a lot of this, and it's really rad that you're being so thoughtful about it, I know it will be confusing and frustrating at times but I think you're on the right path.

For many, many AFAB queers, Fluidity *is* the place of queerness. I think this is one of the major differences between AFAB and AMAB queerness, in that for many AMABs, 'coming out' happens as a realisation "Oh, I like boys, I'm gay" and that's pretty much it.

.... what

not that i even love using terms like "afab" and "amab" but my entire experience was characterized by fluidity and i just can't believe you'd type that shit with any seriousness at all

oh wait i actually can believe it because you talk about it a lot

Hi Brad. When I repeatedly write "many" or "some" - this means "a section of". It does not mean "all". If I meant all, I would write something like "everyone, including specifically Brad Nelson".

And if the directionality implied by terms like AFAB and AMAB doesn't matter to you, that's great. But to other people, who found themselves constantly judged against assumptions that were based on only one starting point (not the starting point that they were at) and found themselves excluded based on not meeting those particular standards, the assertion that "difference matters" can be incredibly important.

But, you know... you go off, because that's what you do.

Good luck, Ye Mad Puffin. This is why I don't post on the "Queer" threads, because this is the kind of reaction I get whenever I post here, and I'm really done with it.

don't make these generalizations in your otherwise perfectly fine post and maybe my brain won't start screaming bc i'm encountering nigh terf-y shit in the queer thread

like even if you say "some" it's obviously not true!!!

You are literally calling a trans person a "terf" - just admit you hate AFABs and go home.

I don't know how much more explicitly you can put up a giant fence saying "no AFAB queers on the queer thread" but congratulations, good job. I'm going, enjoy your cock party all up in here.

your hatred of amab queers comes screaming through every post where you fuckin bring it up so imo good riddance

it's almost like it didn't even need to be said!!!!

all the fine young acronyms

Um, thank you all so much for the posts. I don't want to wade too deep into the acrimony but I found much of Branwell's input enlightening.

"Theoretical" has an unintended connotation of "not valid"

This is a good point and I will be mindful of it in future. I *think* my wife and I have done a decent job of listening and communicating that we believe Skyler, that her voice is heard, and that whatever she's doing/not doing is valid in our eyes.

Even if we (privately) weren't quite sure what to think at first, we have been careful to stay away from "inauthentic, or phase-like" language in how we discuss it with her.

Stuff that happens online can be as Real as stuff that happens in a room.

That's something I'm learning! Daughter has long been Extremely Online. It's very different from my experience of adolescence, of course - pre-internet dating and sex were such a large part of my upbringing. I am doing my best to shift gears.

For many, many AFAB queers, Fluidity *is* the place of queerness.

This is a point that I will take to heart (though I am also listening closely to the resulting dialogue). In any case I *hope* we've made it clear that (1) she's being listened to, (2) the way she identifies is validated and embraced, and (3) the fact that it is evolving doesn't change how valid it is.

In the meantime, stuff to navigate:

Her current girlfriend (let's say "Cristina") is a childhood friend. As a result we know Cristina's parents socially (PTA, Girl Scouts, etc.). I don't think Cristina is out to her parents. So we know more about the situation than they do, but we also know it's not our place to tell them. Potentially awkward, but navigable.

We're trusting Skyler to manage her own outness as far as friends and family are concerned (unless she asks us to tell someone). Indeed, she's been pretty savvy about it! Her coming-out conversations have been strategic and granular. For example, she came out as enby to me but asked me to keep it from her mom for a while; then when she announced her name change she asked me to communicate it to her mom. In contrast, she had talked about being bi only to her mother (at first) but talked about being lesbian to both of us at once. I'm committed to trusting her judgment and respecting her wishes here.

She came out pretty casually to her paternal grandmother (my mother); on my side she's got very close cousins who are lesbian so Skyler's intuited that it's an accepting environment.

On the other hand, my wife's family is conservative/Trumpy. No idea how that's going to go - come Christmastime, it will get difficult to avoid, if only because of the name change. I'm sure it will be an... interesting experience. Advice on this is welcome.

yeah sorry for distracting from the greater conversation. <3 ymp, very psyched for skyler's continuing journey

trying to explain myself more calmly

maybe i'm selectively reading, but whenever branwell has brought up "assigned male at birth" and "assigned female at birth" as distinct experiences, it has always been in some subtle way to undermine the experiences of amab people. as i said upthread, i'm even straight up uncomfortable with these phrases and acronyms, probably because they place too much importance on the assignation itself, and because a lot of people then use this assignation to claim that trans women were "socialized male" and "experienced male privilege." i would just say that 1) it is soooooo much more complicated than that 2) it is... hard to say you've been socialized as a man when you're not a man. i.e. i didn't experience "male socialization," i experienced profound dissonance. it's also a really fuckin terfy argument and i hear it whispering beneath all of branwell's posts on the subject. i wish they would not post about it so much because otherwise their posts are fine

"enjoy your cock party" really sums it up though

Well, tbf the discussion began 28 minutes after the post "I just miss cock."

However, given the poster it could have been a truncation of "cocktails."

(jk, mad respect to Lord Alfred)

My takeaway from Branwell's statement was that they were actually speaking in solidarity with you, Brad.

Branwell expressed that AFAB-queerness is a typically more fluid affair, lacking definition-- that this lack of definition is often painted as being "less authentic".

Branwell expressed that AMAB-queerness typically has easier labels attached to more concrete identities ("gay", i.e.) Although it might not be Branwell's place to make such assertions about AMAB-queerness, I happen to agree with them on this point. I don't think it's a particularly controversial statement.

And furthermore, Branwell's statements are essentially expressing that there is validity in the fluidity of one's queerness. I felt as if the dichotomy that was expressed between version AMAB- and AFAB-queerness was merely topical, considering the discussion was concerning YMP's AFAB child. The statements they were making were also affirming the validity of your own fluidity.

If anything, Branwell's statement only served to highlight that AMAB-and-fluid queers face a particular struggle-- as most AMAB-queers do fall into more easily defined categories (gay! tw! enby!) it makes it even more difficult for AMAB-and-fluid queers to feel accepted and validated.

This thread is like 99% cis gays, talking about cock all day long, casually equating cock = man, etc. etc. and so on. And I don't ever see anyone challenging the bioessentialism of this? If I said something like "I don't miss women, but I sure miss vagina" - I'd have every trans activist in the district screaming at me that vagina doesn't equal women. But for cis gay men to say "I don't miss men but I sure miss cock" - this is completely unchallenged, normal, and... it's bad for me to point this out, but it's not bad for them to do it? How does that work?

You wanna talk profound dissonance? Being the only person of your kind, in a space which ~claims~ to be for "queers" but is repeatedly actively hostile towards you.

Being the only AFAB in an AMAB queer space is genuinely weird. It is... profoundly different from being in the predominantly AFAB and enby spaces I am usually in. But to even mention, "wow, this is really different, and more than slightly uncomfortable a lot of the time" - gets me screamed at, accused of wild shit based on ~assocations~ - stop projecting shit into what I say! I am not responsible for "whispers" that you project into my words. You are 'splaining basic 101 trans concepts to someone who was wrestling with gender dysphoria before you were even born, back before I even had words to explain what I was experiencing, and that's... gross. That's so insulting and patronising.

I am sorry you are uncomfortable with these terms, or that they have such bad associations for you, but we are running out of words to express difference. And when one has spent the vast majority of one's life being the only AFAB in rooms full of AMABs, and feeling the profound discomfort of that difference - I am sorry that you seem SO uncomfortable with other people expressing their own difference, and expressing the discomfort that difference has brought them. Apparently that's only OK when you do it.

I think, if you actually ever sat down and listened to my words, rather than your biased interpretations of my words, you might find that we had quite a lot of areas in common. Of being judged according to templates decided and set up by someone else - but you don't seem interested in finding that out. You want to scream at some straw terf of your own imagination, and I am not interested in your fantasies about me. And quite frankly, I am done with being screamed at.

x-posts, thanks YMP for understanding where the cock thing came from.

FGTI - exactly. 100% hard agree, thank you for understanding and interpreting the things I said, in the context of the conversation. That's precisely what I meant.

I'm really done with having other people's anger and own personal garbage dumped on me. It's deeply unpleasant.

Anyway, good luck to Skyler, and if I have any thoughts on how to handle Trumpy family at Xmas, I will come back to you, YMP, but right now I'm just feeling too bruised.

Many xps but I read it that way too, FGTI.

The important takeaway is not to dismiss or trivialize the reality of someone who is changing their presentation, changing how they identify, or changing how they talk about how they identify?

Of course there will always be people who knew they were Kinsey 6 as soon as they knew where their genitals were. And there will be people whose experiences are more fluid, including (!) people who "just" "experiment" while they're in college. That's why it's described as a spectrum.

Some (emphasis: _some_) of the discourse tends to respect the first group of people and belittle the second, but in an ideal world all of these experiences would be accepted and embraced as authentic. I think?

I missed a lot huh

Question: what is a good thread to ask about how to be a good parent to an LGBTQ teenager?

YMP I am such a parent though she is no longer a teenager as of a couple of weeks ago. I'd be happy to participate in such a thread, not sure this is the right one.

Thanks, Euler. I am open to redirection. I am on the parenting threads that discuss smaller ones, and less neurotypical ones.

That said, starting a thread like "Hey ilx please provide me with an instructional manual for a nonbinary tween" is so niche that it may as well be a vanity thread and I am not that into vanity threads.

my whole life is a vanity thread, it's something I'm actively working on about myself

yeah my daughter is binary-ish, sometimes reluctant to call herself a lesbian because she doesn't want to feel locked in, but has had a girlfriend for three years now. nobody in my family is neurotypical so I have no idea how to negotiate that aspect in any other way than we already do. she told us as soon as she recognized this aspect of her identity, we've spent lots of time with her girlfriend, none of our other kids are in relationships so I don't know how different it would be if she weren't queer. to me it's just parenting with the support you'd give them if they told you they wanted to be an engineer or a farmer or whatever, but that's because our society's already made so much progress on this, even if there's still a long way to go. happy to keep engaging as you like.

♥️❤️🤍

A farmer!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr i got into a fight with my only friend in the neighborhood. We made up. He is sweet, he’s a little douchey but i think he’s also a sweet guy. Sometimes we hook up and he’s pretty good at that admittedly.

Join me next week, for Tuesday Night Fairytales!

This thread is like 99% cis gays, talking about cock all day long, casually equating cock = man, etc. etc. and so on.

Not even remotely true, and also truly dismissive.

You might find some more allies here if you didn't characterize cis gays as a bunch of idiotic cock-chompers all the time.

I've been advocating for trans people for a long time. Trans women and trans men have been my lovers. And yet because I'm married to a guy, it's like none of the homophobia I've faced or psychological repercussions of hiding who I was for half my life count for anything.

Plain tired of it-- of course cis men have privilege. That doesn't negate the pain and utter horror some of us have lived through and dealt with due to society's homophobia.

And on the other side, that experience doesn't give cis gays any sort of bullshit authority to give litmus tests about gender or orientation and oppression. I do think yr right in a lot of what you say, Branwell, particularly in response to YMP's question.

But yr attitude seems to discount the possibility that maybe some of us AMAB were told that our desires and expressions of such were theoretical, or were just a phase, and we're something we'd grow out of...if we weren't told that those desires were wrong and shameful and needed to be beaten out of us.

So this shit has implications for us, too, and being dismissive of that is just nagl.

I just miss cock

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 28 July 2020 01:38 bookmarkflaglink

rather than men, yes xp

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 28 July 2020 01:49 bookmarkflaglink

^^^just so we're clear, that this is what I walked in during. And this is what I was referencing.

You have literally more cis heterosexual fathers of queer AFABs (and they pass into this thread and are accepted and tolerated and welcomed, and not exposed to the suspicion and accusations that I am) posting to this thread than you have queer AFABs, but the problem is ~my~ attitude. There are literally more trans lesbians posting to the No Boys thread than there are cis lesbians on the entirety of ILX. But the problem is ~my~ attitude.

If I even mention that queer AFABs might have different experiences than queer AMABs, I am screamed at, told to GTFO, that I'm not welcome, and accused of being a terf - trans-exclusionary - so let's be clear who has been excluded here - it has not been Brad. It has been me. If I mention that predominantly AMAB queer spaces can often be offputting and exclusionary to non-AMABs, I get screamed at that I must hate AMABs - let's be honest, that reads as a massive smoke screen to avoid ever having to look at or address the ways these spaces might be hateful towards AFABs?

That to mention or talk about systematic misogyny and how misogyny affects and warps homophobia and transphobia as they are directed towareds AFABs - is instantly turned around and twisted to mean I am somehow erasing or negating homophobia and transphobia directed at cis gay men and trans women and nonbinary AMABs?

But the problem is ~my~ attitude?

The problem here is not my atttitude. The problem here is that this is a space that (deliberately or otherwise) centres AMAB queerness, and in doing so treats AMAB as default, centre and norm. Having one single AFAB in here, makes that framework visible. It's uncomfortable for me to be here, because of that framework and the assumptions built around it. But having me here also makes things uncomfortable for you (plural) because my presence disrupts the presumed, unspoken centrality and normativity of AMABness, and throws it off centre. And rather than look about, and acknowledge the weirdness of that centrality, you project your discomfort onto me. It's *MY* fault, my AMAB-hating attitude to blame for the problems I have here, for coming in and going "wow, really kind heavily AMAB in here!" - rather than you lot ever looking at why that space was so AMAB in the first place?

To name a problem is to become the problem.

I'm sorry, Branwell.

Good conversations all around, I say. I have enjoyed reading/listening to them.

Thanks, Alfred.

I'm just going to be clear about one more thing, because I don't think people are getting it.

What I am NOT saying is "gay men are a bunch of cockmunching idiots" - that is a huge misrepresentation of where my problem lies with the joke.

What I AM saying is "this way that a couple of cis gay men are equating cock with manhood, even in a joke, is actually kinda transphobic and offputting." And I find it weird, that I have to explain that in a setting where the good queers would instantly recognise and problematise transphobia against AMAB trans and nonbinary people?

I'm taking any advice to YMP to email, because this has wandered so far off, and I think you want to get back to your regularly scheduled cocktails and (non-transphobic) cock jokes.

Branwell, fair enough. I guess maybe I don't see a cheeky exchange between two gay AMABs as part of a conspiracy to create an unsafe space for AFABs or trans people in this thread, but that's an opinion that's worth evaluating.

Thanks for the exchange.

And I really do say that in honesty and empathy. Sorry to cause grief.

I want to type a lot here but I'll just say that there is a lot of misplaced hostility directed toward Branwell in this thread today and yesterday-- and in general. Branwell, your perspectives are generous and valuable and I'm glad you're posting!

And tbf this thread might not me 99% gay men but it's at least 75% gay men (not to erase the non-gay men who post here) and the discourse is 60-75% related to cock-guzzling (not to erase the non-fellatio related posts, we do talk about anal as well, i.e.)

In that sense, these threads are most definitely ILX's gay bar.

This might be my cis gay male showing, but I did take the Alfred-Morbs joke exchange as not the opposite of transphobic, though only in the sense that joking that wanting men and wanting cocks are two separate things could be, well, very tricky to unpack.

i'm not sorry

my misanthropy is partially justified by the utter humorlessness of Poster X

"Humorless" is a charge leveled at trans people by people who greatly overestimate their own sense of humor.

Agreed with Eric, tbh— the charge is mostly leveled at women and trans people by straights and older gay men.

I indict myself in that comment, fwiw.

I admit to having more to learn, always.

I have more to learn but significantly less time than I did to learn it, is how I'd characterize it.

Sometimes hostility is directed at difficult people because they are difficult people, news at 11

Likewise...

I also fully admit to being a little mystified by certain discourses around gender. To me it seems pretty obvious that most people are enby, to one degree or another, as the gender binary is a false construct anyway... which doesn't invalidate the identity formation, fwiw, but just gives me pause as to *who and what the identity formation is for.*

A Black friend of mine shared that they are enby and many of their enby friends are also Black, seeing it as a method of resisting binaristic structures placed on Black bodies since chattel slavery. This makes sense to me.

But many of the people I saw on social media sharing their enby status were masc-presenting cis white dudes who are gay or sexually fluid, and many I've known in the past have been cis white women in heterosexual relationships and also with kids.

These things are complex and messy, at times, and I'm here for learning and thinking about it, and also trying my best to respect people while doing so. I am truly sorry for my shortcomings in this latter regard!

To me it seems pretty obvious that most people are enby, to one degree or another, as the gender binary is a false construct anyway... which doesn't invalidate the identity formation, fwiw, but just gives me pause as to *who and what the identity formation is for.*

As someone who has never considered themself to be enby, I find this point intriguing and worthy of more self-examination.

I would not at all be surprised to discover, thru therapy, that my cis identity is the result of targeted conditioning from male peers during my pre- and pubescent years.

I know that sounds naive and tardy, but I also know I'm basically the cl3m3nz4 of the gay threads.

a cheeky exchange

we do talk about anal as well

ISWYDT

My opinion about the origin of TERFwars is that ciswomen are being forced into accepting that "gender binary is a false construct" when many of them believe that this assertion should be the decision of ciswomen themselves-- historically oppressed for millennia by patriarchal structures; oppression is still ongoing. I'm not a TERF (at all) but I'm somewhat of a TERF-sympathizer-- this is to say, I think that discussion would be better than shouting "TERF!" at anybody with a divergent opinion. (Not so much because I think that people with TERFy views are right, but because responding to them with aggression is just going to further radicalize them.)

Re: "difficult people"-- consistently I see that certain people with a more generous posting style tend to get dissected and debated more readily and that the environment around them sours-- they are "difficult" because people make it impossible for them to be any other way. I don't see anything difficult having been expressed today or yesterday by Branwell, and see any "difficulty" that may have been generated as being the result of responses from other posters.

ok but narcissism does tend to suck the air out of the room

that isn't directed at anyone, just a generalization. i've appreciated following the discussion here and have nothing to add.

sorry (maybe not sorry) to divert from topic but, as mentioned in the "last x movies" thread, I think everyone who hasn't should watch the newly available 1977 doc "Word Is Out." It's remarkable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bXfALa7YlU

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/wordisout

Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives is a 1977 documentary film featuring interviews with 26 gay men and women. It was directed by six people collectively known as the Mariposa Film Group. Peter Adair conceived and produced the film, and was one of the directors. The film premiered in November 1977 at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, and went into limited national release in 1978.

Word Is Out intercuts interviews with 26 people, who speak about their experiences as gay men and lesbians. The interviewees range in age from 18 to 77, in location from San Francisco to New Mexico to Boston, in type from bee-hived housewife to student to conservative businessman to sultry drag queen, and in race from Caucasian to Hispanic, African-American, and Asian. Writer Elsa Gidlow, professor Sally Gearhart, inventor John Burnside, civil rights leader Harry Hay, actress Pat Bond, and avant-garde filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky are among the interviewees. The interviewees describe their experiences of coming out; falling in and out of love; and struggling against prejudice, stereotypes, and discriminatory laws.

Have seen; it's very very good, tho I remember liking Before Stonewall a bit more for covering a wider range of landmark moments.

Thanks ulysses, looks interesting!!

fgti, re: your tactic with TERFs, I think that generally speaking, a more gentle tone would work well in most cases of disagreement and persuasion. But so many of the arguments that TERFs give are given in bad faith, barring those that are associated with radical feminism...that is, truly radical feminism understands that binaristic gender views are an imposition of colonial and religious forces, and not actually reflective of the vast variance of human experience and feeling.

I miss my IRL queer spaces so, so much at the moment. Lockdown has been so hard for that. I miss my queer theory reading group. I miss my various enby groups. I miss queer reading nights at the Feminist Library.

I miss spaces where being COMPLICATED is not automatically equated to being "difficult". Spaces where being "difficult" is celebrated as an inherent part of the complicated panology of queerness, and not pathologised or used as a justification for your abuse.

I miss spaces where "acknowledgement of systemic oppression and power structures" is not dismissed as ~oh noes a conspiracy~ thinking, but considered the structure of fundamental reality.

I miss, most of all, in my queer theory reading group, the respect that we show each other, that we do not automatically reach for the worst, most problematic, negative interpretation of the things we discuss, but that we tease out difficult and thorny and complicated concepts together. That freedom is such a joy, and it's so rare.

But then, on a supposed "LGBT" thread, I'm told that I don't just automatically have a right to be here, becuase I was once an L who moved through into the BT - but that I have to work on acquiring "allies", before I will be allowed to be accepted? Um, oh rlly? And in the course of one L->BT person trying to advise and indirectly console/support another L->BT, that AFAB queerness is valid and fluidity is valid and online experiences are valid, I got screamed at because my advice centred AFAB queer people. (That centring AFAB queer inherently means excluding AMAB queers, but... if a space centres AMAB queer people by default, that's... NOT exclusionary? That's just... what, normal?) That I'm back in a space where I don't get the benefit of the doubt. Where I have to justify my belonging in what is labelled as my community.

One of the weirdest things about transitioning has been seeing the differences in how people treated me at work, when I had a super feminine name (think: Jane) compared to how they treat me now, that I have changed to a more neutral, but slightly male-coded name (think: Jayden). How the same emails with the same words carry more weight from Jayden, how my opinions are now treated authoratively, that I'm treated with the assumption of competence due a programmer turned systems analyst with 25+ years experience in databases, and not second-guessed and talked down to and told my solutions are inherently never going to work. That Jayden gets taken seriously by consultants and suppliers and is able to accomplish projects with minimal friction; in a way that Jane had to wrestle and argue, and get in the male manager to say "we're doing it Jane's way!", and generally be completely *difficult*, to get the most basic stuff done.

But then I come back to ILX, and it's like - all of that basic assumption of competence. All of that presumption that I might have experience, might have accumulated knowledge and learning, might be someone who is speaking-from-the-inside with regards to matters of gender and queerness and LGBT issues? Might have done the work, and the therapy, and the reading, and the support groups, and gone through a transition or three and asked some hard questions and chomped through some difficult answers? Nope, I'm just back to being Jane, the "difficult" man-hating man-hater. It's so exhausting.

The thing that offended me most about Brad's flying off the handle yesterday, was totally misreading what I was saying, and this whole 'that's terfy!!!' and trotting out the old Trans 101 'Trans Women Don't Have Male Privilege' on the intellectual level of a Tumblr teen in a call-out post.

When up until lockdown, I was existing in a space, where we had pushed past Trans 101 and we were into, like:

Trans 201 - Do Trans men have male privilege? What makes the 'male' in privilege? What is privilege anyway, is it something you can have, is it something you can gain or lose? Or is 'having' privilege the wrong way of thinking about it entirely, and maybe 'being the beneficiary of' is a more helpful framing?

Trans 301 - What about nonbinary people? Are nonbinary people ever the beneficiary of male privilege? In what ways, under what conditions, does directionality matter? Like, sure, gender is a power structure, but what if "male" and "female" are not positions, but, like... directions, like there is no such place as "The North" or "The South" but someone who is "moving north" may still be further south than someone who is "moving south"?

Trans 401 - is this whole binary / non-binary binary just another false binary entirely, when thinking about the idea of directionality? What comprises a "transition"? What does "cis" even mean? Statements like "everyone's a little nonbinary" just come across as a little too... pat to me, because some people definitely experience more *friction* than others, due to their movement, and the *direction* of their movement can also affect how much friction they experience?

And in my queer theory reading group, we were getting up to, like post-grad, doctoral level trans studies of like

Trans 501 - wow the issue of trans people and "male" "privilege" is really complicated and not straightforward at all, and there are no black and white yes/no absolutes because Gender and the systems of misogyny that enforce arbitrary binaries onto flux-like gradients are actually super complex systems with multiple power gradients in multiple interlocking directions that also intersect with age and race and culture and all sorts of other power structures, holy hell this is so interesting!!!! I learn so much from these discussions!

But I come back to ILX and there's someone just shouting "you can't say that, that's terfy, you terfy terf terf man hating man hater terf" and I'm just like... really?

I really am sorry for being an ass to you, Branwell. I think your points are well-taken, and my posts were coming from a place of misunderstanding and hurt, not openness.

I appreciate your posts.

jfc fuck this

Cheers, Table, I appreciate that.

I had a bit of a conversation with FGTI about this last night, and I know this is going to be controversial but...

I spend a lot of time, talking to cis women, and especially older cis women, who have encountered 'terf discouse', in both senses of the word (both transphobic propaganda that preys on feminist concerns; and the demonisation of any cis woman who deviates more than .01mm from the Acceptable Trans Discourse in public.) Sometimes they seek me out, sometimes I DM them privately to say like "hey, you posted this thing - I'm trans, do you want to talk about it?" And we talk about it, privately, and often really, really productively.

Doing the whole 'scream at terf cis women' thing is one of those things that might feel righteous, but is actually super, super counter-productive, on so many levels. It does not help trans causes at all. It actively radicalises the women who are merely curious, or concerned, and pushes them deeper into believing that trans people are bullies. It is almost universally seen as method of shutting down cis women when they try to talk about misogyny, and shutting them up. When I talk to 'terf-curious' women, I often have to do the double-work of literally undoing the damage of ~terf discourse~, before I can even start to talk ~trans stuff~.

If you actually care about trans people, and make things better for us, please, for the love of all that is holy, screaming 'terf' at women is the LEAST effective thing you can do to fight transphobia.

xps to Eric: Before Stonewall has been on my list for awhile; will bump it up and have a go sooner based on your recommendation, thanks!

Branwell stop dragging truscum talking points to this board from 2008 tumblr

go get J3ss3 Sing@l to interview you if you want attention

Thanks, FGTI and Table for making interesting points, and engaging seriously with the discussion. I really miss discussions on that level, but it's clear there's not much appetite for them among the other regulars. Have a good evening.

Yeah sorry guys, calling an AFAB-transperson (who themselves has not undergone medical transitioning) "truscum" is way outside of my level of comfort and I'm gonna leave this discussion before I start using the word "fuck"

I miss my IRL queer spaces so, so much at the moment. Lockdown has been so hard for that. I miss my queer theory reading group. I miss my various enby groups. I miss queer reading nights at the Feminist Library.

I miss spaces where being COMPLICATED is not automatically equated to being "difficult". Spaces where being "difficult" is celebrated as an inherent part of the complicated panology of queerness, and not pathologised or used as a justification for your abuse.

I miss spaces where "acknowledgement of systemic oppression and power structures" is not dismissed as ~oh noes a conspiracy~ thinking, but considered the structure of fundamental reality.

I miss, most of all, in my queer theory reading group, the respect that we show each other, that we do not automatically reach for the worst, most problematic, negative interpretation of the things we discuss, but that we tease out difficult and thorny and complicated concepts together. That freedom is such a joy, and it's so rare.

The difference, of course, being that it's a lot easier to have a discussion in person than it is among a faceless group of usernames.

a summer thread

boy do we need it now

Start it up yourself and you get to pick which letters from the alphabet soup you want.

Just don’t use “QUILTBAG”

i cant even guess if thats a 'real' acronym

I've seen it in the wild

So ... in this thread?

Morbz, I know life is shit, no one cares about us, and you've been going through a rough time. I wish you the best, but insulting people who might otherwise be your allies just seems counterproductive and at this point, cruel to all parties involved.

oh i havent BEGUN insulting anybody

and i dont need this

i feel the same kinship with LGBHHDGFUUZD people as i do with the right-handed.

xp feel free to FINISH anytime soon

hairpulling.gif

Yeah sorry guys, calling an AFAB-transperson (who themselves has not undergone medical transitioning) "truscum" is way outside of my level of comfort and I'm gonna leave this discussion before I start using the word "fuck"

― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, July 29, 2020 11:12 AM (two hours ago)

oh hey just to circle back to this, fuck this and fuck you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fTXzdHoip8

Thread's not doing much to bolster the case for cis gay men rn tbh.

i'd like a case, a nice lager perhaps

ftr my good faith/bad faith thread was in response to this thread

did i miss something

basically the ILX version of Fox & Friends

now let's do Fox and His Friends

Kinda already did both

AFAB queerness is valid and fluidity is valid and online experiences are valid, I got screamed at because my advice centred AFAB queer people. (That centring AFAB queer inherently means excluding AMAB queers, but... if a space centres AMAB queer people by default, that's... NOT exclusionary? That's just... what, normal?)

If you make a disparity between AFAB spaces and AMAB spaces, you are literally transphobic.

less AFAB and AMAB, more AHAB (moby dick reference)

I'm on board with that.

ahoy

blow me Ishmael ;)

call it a braised cod

lol

If you make a disparity between AFAB spaces and AMAB spaces, you are literally transphobic.

― braised cod

Thanking u for circling back to this

That was a genuine thank u!!

sorry silby, I'm new here.

Never admit that, claim you’ve been posting for at least 12 years under various names

<3

Good mourning!

Could use a couple more of you over on the Janet poll thread with Brad gone.

And I remain horny.

Still fighting anxiety/panic, but at least I'm finally on a prescription.

Brad left? Oh dear.

Sending all of you lots of love.

I don't know that for sure; just seems that way since otherwise he'd be all over the Janet poll.

it's a great poll Eric

not v lgbt atm but feel duty-bound to assert in brad's absence that they are a they

thanks for being so dutiful

less AFAB and AMAB, more AHAB (moby dick reference)

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map)

this, of course, stands for "assigned harpoon at birth"

(no i didn't come up with this, all of these jokes have been told and retold for years)

lol

innies over here, outies over there

I must admit it took me a while to work out who was assigned what at birth when I first saw the ACAB as an acronym. Or, rather, to work out that it wasn't related at all.

Assigned Cop At Birth fits for some people

Omg!

Y all i missed a LOT
I’m going to start a new thread if nobody else has started one

please do!

♥️