Please Help a Brother Out: Come Fund Top Surgery for Bryan

By now practically everyone in the Queer Nation has heard of the really unfortunate incidents that occurred in March of this year on the Washington Mall during the Supreme Court arguments on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

But do you know the real people who it happened to? Well meet the guy who was holding the Trans* Flag that day.

As Bryan Ellicott explains, what started as a happy and exciting day of LGBT Pride & History turned into his ”Supreme Court Marriage Rally Transphobic Experience From Hell” when a staffer and one of the big Gay Inc. groups (ok so it was HRC again) became upset to see other than approved people and symbols cluttering up their photo-op moments and tried to run the riffraff off. With Bryan his Flag suddenly thrust unwilling into a staring role as “unapproved riffraff”.

A political activist for the progressive and LGBT community Bryan describes himself as an ”open and proud bisexual transman”. A native of Staten Island NY graduating from College of Staten Island with a BA in Poli Sci, he has interned in the offices of Christine Quinn, the Speaker of the New York City Council and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. During 2012, he went out and worked in the Ohio OFA (Organizing for Action) office helping re-elect Obama to a second term. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy Bryan worked with FEMA doing Community Relations work. He’s currently a board member of the Stonewall Democrats of New York City and a campaign aid (LGBT Liaison) to Mel Wymore in his run for the New York City Council.

Says Bryan,

“the bulk of my work is in the LGBT community whether it be advocating for Marriage Equality across the country, calling out the need those who talk ill to me or any of my transgender brothers and sisters as well as my continued work for Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) in New York State or when it comes to people learning about bisexuality and not thinking those horrible myths are anything but that.”

When trouble came Bryan and his friends were there standing strong representing the the entire LGBT Community. So while you are cheering the symbolism please also remember the actual person. Says Bryan,

“I wanted to ask you my brothers and sisters to help me in my journey. Top surgery is my next step toward the place I want to be. Anything you can do to help me would be most appreciated and if you could share this with others that would be amazing as well.”

So what do you says people? He was there for us. Can you be there for him? Please click the link and Help Fund Top Surgery for Bryan. Thanks

Being Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Asexual and Christian An Affirming Talk and Question and Answer Session with Pastor Maggie Gillespie

bisexual-community:

Are you Christian and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Asexual, Allied or Questioning? Do you have religious questions or concerns?

This Saturday, May 11th 2013 at 2 PM the Bloomsburg Danville Berwick PA LGBTA Community invites you to join them at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church located on East Main and Iron Street in Bloomsburg PA for an Affirming Talk and Question and Answer Session with Pastor Maggie Gillespie. Dr. Gillespie is currently the Protestant Campus Ministry at Bloomsburg University. Refreshments will be served.

Can’t make it to this event? Please join our Facebook Page: Bloomsburg/Danville/Berwick PA LGBTA Community, a group for LGBTA people in the greater Bloomsburg PA Area to connect,network and support each other.

Our group is for ALL people in the area who otherwise do not have access to support and fellowship so all local residents can receive such as well as students and alumni of various universities. Together, community, students and alumni we can improve all our lives.

So you know how bisexuals are just privileged posers and how biphobia doesn't really exist and how silly vapid bisexual people just need to stop complaining about being called sluts?

bisexual-community:

umm yeah! So just maybe you all who say that/think that should just read this instead —

Drown Them in a Sea of Noise Part 1: Bisexuality, and My Rape

It was around the end of summer 2007 going into fall. I had moved out on my own at college and for the first time in my life I was able to explore my gender, my thoughts about my sexuality, everything…

I started hanging out with new friends going out drinking . Being 22. The statistics show that most people who are raped know their attacker. I knew mine. We had hung out several times before. He and I had tons of mutual friends. He joked that my boyish gender presentation would turn off my boyfriend. I joked ”but my girl friend she loved it”. After years of hiding away the truth… I started to talk about my bisexuality.

We live in a culture where being bisexual signals sexual availability … We are not seen as intimidating as lesbians or as prudish as straight women…

… [CLIP TW] …

… I’ve seen many posts about how bisexuals have it so easy, how biphobia is relatively harmless, “sticks and stones but words will never hurt” type things. How we shouldn’t complain when media portrays bisexuals as easy or confused or a million other wrong things. That ”hot sexy Bi babes!” Can never create things as bad as what we say they do.

We live in a world where bisexuality is seen as a performance for men. Where everything a woman does is a performance for men. With the expectation of Bi women being ”more open” and more fun (read sexually available) added on top of that is it any wonder that studies have found out this?

Half of all of us. But until now nobody spoke about it. Not the women’s shelter I went to for counseling and testing. Not the LGBTA (A for “ally” here) Center at my university. No one. We are so often invisible and so so many of us suffer in silence … I had heard and seen what the queer community at large thought of bisexuals. Not queer enough, privilege grubbers . .

So I didn’t talk about it …

We need to talk about this. About WHY that stat is so high. And we need to be LOUD. So loud that our voices drown out the cries of “sit down!” Of ” stop being so angry!” Of ” wait till marriage equality passes!” We need to shriek and howl over them so that those out their in the darkness can hear us and know they are not alone and to warn those that would harm us that it will not be tolerated …

Click HERE to read full article TW: 4 you know RAPE! and also misogyny and biphobia and all that bad stuff.

bimagazine:

The Lambda Literary Foundation describes LGBT Studies as scholarly work oriented toward academia, libraries, cultural professionals, and the more academic reader.

Bi Magazine reviewer Anil Vora would argue that one doesn’t have to be a geek to read and appreciate these books. On the contrary, books on LGBT studies provide history and context on queer movements worldwide, movements from which we can draw inspiration and energy to drive our own continued struggle for equality. These books are also some of the most successful in articulating a vision of hope for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

Vora’s review includes three nominated books: Acts of Gaiety: LGBT Performance and the Politics of Pleasure by Sara Warner, The Invention of Heterosexual Culture (L’Invention de la culture hétérosexuelle) by Louis-Georges Tin, and South Africa and the Dream of Love to Come: Queer Sexuality and the Struggle for Freedom by Brenna Munro. Also included is J. Jack Halberstam’s Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal, which was submitted for Lammy consideration but did not make the final list.

[Austin TX]: Be Part of an indie Bisexual Queer Horror Film, have a Ton of Fun plus get to Hang Out with Totally Cool Peeps!!!

bisexual-community:

Tovah and Ritch need zombies for TONIGHT! Saturday evening April 20th ”Ze, Zombie” shoot! Help us, friends!

We have some clothes you could change into, but if you could bring your own that’d be fantastic. Our fake blood hasn’t stained clothing yet, but its possible, so if you bring your own clothes, maybe bring darker stuff!

We will be doing make up, though again if you want to do your own, that’d be helpful!

We’ll be meeting at Roy G. Guererro Park. You don’t need to know how to act, just how to stumble and/or run!

Its a very simple couple of scenes, where we just need a big running group, and a smaller group ripping out someone’s organs. Nothing too fancy.

Hugged: A Queer Webcomic (a nonlinear, queer, autobiographical romance)

bisexual-community:

FOLLOW THIS WEB COMIC Note: Sometimes NWS

Says bisexual artist, activist and filmmaker Ritch And Famous —

Hey, so I’ve been working on this web comic, and want to get the word out on it a bit more. Its autobiographical, so its about a bisexual character (me!). Hopefully some of you will get a kick out of it!

Click Here Y’All

(Source: facebook.com)

anarcho-queer:

While the head honchos at the HRC are making 6 figure salaries from donations to support ‘marriage equality’, hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ youth are homeless andare purposely ignored by mainstream gay organizations. The ‘fight’ for same sex marriage has proven to be a profitable business for gay ‘non-profit’ businesses, so it’s no wonder why gay marriage overshadows all other LGBTQ issues. After all, helping the needy results in smaller pay.

Supporting gay marriage doesn’t mean you support the queer struggle. In fact, most ‘allies’ and even a large portion of more fortunate queers don’t know the facts about LGBTQ homelessness, violence against trans* people, high unemployment, discrimination, etc, nor do they bother to research it. They just care about their favorite gay celebrities being able to tie the knot.

If you care about the queer struggle, take a minute of your day to familiarize yourself with the disturbing statistics:

20- 40% of homeless youth are LGBTQ. In comparison, the general youth population is only 3-10% LGBTQ.

LGBTQ youth are twice as likely to experience sexual abuse before the age of 12.

LGBTQ youth, once homeless, are at higher risk for victimization, mental health problems, and unsafe sexual practices. 58.7% of LGBTQ homeless youth have been sexually victimized compared to 33.4% of heterosexual homeless youth

LGBTQ youth are roughly 7.4 times more likely to experience acts of sexual violence than heterosexual homeless youth

LGBTQ homeless youth commit suicide at higher rates (62%) than heterosexual homeless youth (29%)

At least 20% of ALL transgender people will be homeless sometime in their life.

29% of transgender people reported being turned away from a homeless shelter due to their transgender status.

Please consider taking action to help combat LGBTQ homelessness. I suggest making a donation to the Ali Forney Center or volunteering at your local LGBTQ homeless shelter.

P.S. Fuck the HRC!

(Source: nationalhomeless.org)

Ze, Zombie discriminates against straight people

zezombie:

Ze, Zombie is a horror movie about a group of queer people.

All those characters are played by queer actors.

The film is written and produced by queer people.

The music is all written and produced by queer people.

We have created a beautiful format for queer people to exhibit their talents and passions.

If this offends straight people, or they feel marginalized because of it…

…good.

time for another of amo’s random bi audits!

amoammo:

yay! time for another of amo’s random bi audits!

Flicking through Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (third edition, naturally). Still have it from a course that I ended up not doing, ages ago.

Anyway, heterosexuality, homosexual, homosexuality, lesbianism, and queer theory all get indexed (most of them many, many times). Bisexuality and related words get zero mentions in the index.

That’s despite Virginia Woolf, Jeanette Winterson, Oscar Wide, Alice Walker, Gore Vidal, William Shakespeare, ~~Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick~~, Vita Sackville-West, Kate Millet, Byron and Aubrey Beardsley all featuring. (As well as probs loads of other bis / bi-ish ppl whose names I don’t recognise.)

Just a small FYI for an otherwise excellent item. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was a self-described sexually vanilla’ person in a happy, long-term heterosexual marriage. It might in fact, be more correct to perhaps think of Kosofsky Sedgwick in terms of a straight woman who enjoys slash fiction, who was held in some disrepute by the lesbian community and who returned the favour herself.

It is sometimes supposed that becasue of her field of study as well as various comments attributed to her using the words queer and pansexual that Kosofsky Sedgwick might have been lesbian or at least bisexual/non-monosexual. But this is actually a misunderstanding. First in the commonly accepted slang of the time “pansexual” was until fairly recently used to primarily refer to the mostly straight but kinky BDSM community and then her ideas about queerness as an identifier, which she described in “Tendencies ” as “One of the things that ‘queer’ can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made (or can’t be made) to signify monolithically.”.

Being Queer is fun. Try it.

(Source: queergraffiti)

Camera Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS
ISO 80	Aperture f/2.8
Exposure 1/60th	Focal Length 6mm