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moonlightsapphic · 2 years

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In my early twenties now and quickly learning that millennials who once claimed that they’re rebelling against desi societal norms and never getting married unless they find the truest love are ... absolute traitors. The NUMBER of people in their late twenties that have jumped into an arranged marriage since pandemic restrictions loosened up in 2021—Sir/ma’am don’t get me wrong I am happy for you but I am also shook at your betrayal.

The reason this upsets me is these weddings are regarded as a huge celebration of romantic love—when actual “love” is an experience much further down the line for most of these couples. They were simply set up by family and are usually barely acquainted by the time they’re wedded BUT believe each other to be a good fit and are committing to married life. Which in and of itself is beautiful—but it’s not love (yet).

You know what’s love? The bond between me and my long-term girlfriend, the long-distance, closeted adult relationship that we have worked on and worked on and worked on to nurture through so much awful homophobia and resistance. We are yet another queer couple among hundreds in South Asia who might end up having to live in hiding while our parents pester us and eventually emotionally blackmail us into getting into cisheterosexual marriages we don’t want.

I just find it so hypocritical that desi families will celebrate arranged (even coerced) weddings so extravagantly, while also actively sabotaging the relationships and agency their sons and daughters truly wanted.

And cisheterosexual millennials will never understand that struggle in the same way. I’m just distraught because I thought they would help pave the way for the rest of us (not because they owe it to us, of course, but because they claimed they would), if even a little bit. Instead, I’ve watched many Apus and Bhaiyas I once respected ending up projecting their own positive traditional experiences on younger people who never asked for it.

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rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world · 1 year

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In Sensorium: Notes for My People- Tanais

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Fragrance has long been used to mark who is civilized and who is barbaric, who is pure and who is polluted, who is free and who is damned.” - Tanais

After listening to just a chapter of this entrancing memoir-meets-cultural history of perfume and scent, I knew I needed a hard copy. Tanais is one of those few authors who reminded me of that Vashti Bunyan song “I’d Like to Walk Around in Your Mind” - not in a creepy way, more of an “I love how this person thinks and wanna discuss a million things with them” way!

In Sensorium is in part a love letter to Tanais’ Bangladeshi heritage, presenting their personal journey in the greater context of the horrors of the caste system, the Partition, and the gut-wrenching violence exacted on women & femmes therein. They follow the through line of perfume and scent - the roles played by colonization, class, and climate; and how the drive to create beauty for its own sake knows no bounds.

Creating beauty comes naturally to Tanais, a self-taught perfumer. After reading this book I had to check out their creations - I am after all the kid who collected perfume samples. Luckily Tanais sells tiny rollerballs of their scents for $8 so I could not only afford them, I could afford several! My favorites were:

Nymphea - an aquatic white floral of lotus and lily with the comforting warmth of sandalwood.

Matí - a tribute to little tablets of Ganges river clay eaten by expectant mothers in Bangladesh. This complex, earthy rose evokes coziness with its notes of cocoa and Ganges clay. These scents are both truly addictive.

I also bought the Heart Chakra lipstick, which looks green in the tube but turns a brilliant berry on me, fading to a popsicle stain (see below).

If you have an interest in memoirs by queer brown femmes, Bangladesh, perfume, or just love lyrical prose, you will be grateful for the journey.

#book review #books #reading #makeup #beauty #perfume #tanais #tanaïs #bangladesh #lgbtq books #bookblr #desi culture #queer books #immigrant stories #desi books #bangladeshi #in sensorium #book recommendations

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76crimes · 1 year

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Trans women in Bangladesh must beg to live, but face arrest for begging.

#LGBT #LGBTrights #LGBTQ #humanrights #homophobia #LGBTQrights #Bangladesh #hijras #transgender

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bangladeshiqueermuslims · 2 months

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#bangladesh #bengali #queer #bangladeshi queer #hijra #gay #muslim #lgbtqia #rainbow #lgbt bd #wlw #mlm #sapphic #transgender #transsexual #somokami #somopremi #loveislove #bangladesh lgbtq

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queerism1969 · 1 year

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yaworldchallenge · 2 years

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🇧🇩 Bangladesh

Region: Asia

The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali

Author: Sabina Khan

336 pages, published 2019

Original language: English

Native author? Yes

Age: Teen

Blurb:

Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali has always been fascinated by the universe around her and the laws of physics that keep everything in order. But her life at home isn't so absolute.

Unable to come out to her conservative Muslim parents, she keeps that part of her identity hidden. And that means keeping her girlfriend, Ariana, a secret from them too. Luckily, only a few more months stand between her carefully monitored life at home and a fresh start at Caltech in the fall. But when Rukhsana's mom catches her and Ariana together, her future begins to collapse around her.

Devastated and confused, Rukhsana's parents whisk her off to stay with their extended family in Bangladesh where, along with the loving arms of her grandmother and cousins, she is met with a world of arranged marriages, religious tradition, and intolerance. Fortunately, Rukhsana finds allies along the way and, through reading her grandmother's old diary, finds the courage to take control of her future and fight for her love.

A gritty novel that doesn't shy away from the darkest corners of ourselves, The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali provides a timely and achingly honest portrait of what it's like to grow up feeling unwelcome in your own culture and proves that love, above all else, has the power to change the world.

Other reps: #lesbian #muslim

Genres: #contemporary #family #cross-cultural

My thoughts:

Well, that’s a pretty long blurb, and sums up most of the theme of the novel. I’ve heard good things about this book, though I’ve also heard it’s pretty heart-rending. I’m here for the queer girls, though.

Review to come.

Kindle link

#bangladesh #ya world challenge #ya books #lgbtq books #the love and lies of rukhsana ali #sabina khan #lesbian #muslim #contemporary #family #cross-cultural #asia

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femboyabirr · 1 year

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Bangladeshi Femboy

#cute crossdreser #cross dressing #transgender #gay pride #femboii #sissi femboi #lgbtq #bangladesh

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sleepysera · 2 years

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6.20.22 Headlines

WORLD NEWS

South East Asia: Floods displace millions and kill dozens in India and Bangladesh (BBC)

“At least 59 people are known to have died in lightning strikes and landslides triggered by severe monsoon storms in India and Bangladesh. Millions of people have been stranded while emergency workers have struggled to reach those affected. Forecasters are warning that the flooding is expected to get worse over the next few days. Some Bangladesh government officials have described the recent flooding as the country's worst since 2004.”

Sri Lanka: Students demand government resign over crisis (AP)

“Thousands of students from state universities marched in Sri Lanka’s capital on Monday to demand the president and prime minister resign over an economic crisis that has caused severe shortages of essential supplies and disrupted people’s livelihoods and education.”

Colombia: First leftist president picked in tight runoff contest (AP)

“Colombia will be governed by a leftist president for the first time after former rebel Gustavo Petro narrowly defeated a real estate tycoon in a runoff election that underscored people’s disgust with the country’s traditional politicians.”

US NEWS

Homelessness: Hundreds of homeless die in extreme heat (AP)

“Around the country, heat contributes to some 1,500 deaths annually, and advocates estimate about half of those people are homeless. Temperatures are rising nearly everywhere because of global warming, combining with brutal drought in some places to create more intense, frequent and longer heat waves. The past few summers have been some of the hottest on record.”

Wikileaks: Julian Assange can be extradited, says UK home secretary (BBC)

“Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the US has been approved by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel. Mr Assange has 14 days to appeal over the decision, the Home Office said. It said the courts found extradition would not be "incompatible with his human rights" and that while in the US "he will be treated appropriately". Mr Assange is wanted by the American authorities over documents leaked in 2010 and 2011, which the US says broke the law and endangered lives. The Wikileaks documents related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.”

Title IX: What is Title IX and what impact has it had? (AP)

“Title IX, the law best known for its role in gender equity in athletics and preventing sexual harassment on campuses, is turning 50. It was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on June 23, 1972, after being shepherded through Congress in part by Rep. Patsy Mink, a Democrat from Hawaii who was the first woman of color elected to the U.S. House. The law forbids discrimination based on sex in education, and despite its age remains a vital piece in the ongoing push for equality, including in the LGBTQ community.”

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fuck-hamas-go-israel · 7 months

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Ethnic cleansing? Genocide? Apartheid?

Throwing around these buzzwords to describe the Israel-Hamas war because you’ve seen them on social media doesn’t make you right, and it doesn’t make you an activist.

It makes you ignorant, intellectually dishonest, and lazy for parroting biased talking points with no concept about what these terms actually mean.

What is apartheid?

Well, it was first used to describe the political system in South Africa and today’s Namibia whereby racism was institutionalised. This manner of governance meant that clear racial segregation would occur, in a manner that benefited the white race and would actively oppress those who had darker skin.

This meant that there were white-only spaces, white people would get prioritised when it came to education and jobs, and relationships/marriages between white peoples and coloured people were illegal.

Is Israel objectively an apartheid state? There are no laws that actively favour one group over the other. There is a sizeable population of Israeli Arabs that can thrive in the same way as the Israeli Jews can. There are laws against discrimination on the basis of gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

Palestinians from Gaza are allowed to work in Israel through a work permit system. There are about 150,000 Palestinians working in Israel, most of which live in Israel and some come from Gaza/the West Bank. They aren’t denied rights institutionally.

Is it harder to get a job or education in Israel if you’re a Palestinian from Gaza? Sure, because of different governments. It’s like how it’s a lot easier for you to find a job in your own country (in terms of paperwork and bureaucracy) than overseas. But you’re not denied the right to apply.

Of course, if you have a history of violence, a criminal record, or your family has ties to terrorists, then it’ll be a lot harder to get an approved work permit. But that’s not apartheid. That’s common sense, and a regulation practiced by all countries that minimally desire to protect their own population from danger.

Ethnic cleansing and genocide

These two concepts can go hand-in-hand. Ethnic cleansing refers to the mass expulsion or killing of a group of people based on their ethnicity. Similarly, genocide is the purposeful killing of a group of people solely with the intention of annihilating them.

Famous examples? The Holocaust, of course, where the Nazi regime believed in the superiority of the Aryan race and decided to declare genocide on the Jews, Romanis, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, people with “Asian features”, and many many other groups. Anyone who they didn’t think was “pure”.

Their aim was to ensure that the Aryan race propagated without having “impure” blood affecting the bloodlines. They even started a eugenics programme called Lebensborn to ensure that more pure Aryan babies were born.

More recent examples? The Rwandan genocide where the Hutus attempted to wipe out the Tutsis on the basis of ethnicity. They mandated that Tutsis mention their ethnicity on state-issued ID cards in order for the Hutus in power to be able to identify them and then kill them.

Or the Yazidi genocide which happened so recently, in which ISIL killed, raped, and sent thousands of Yazidis into conversion camps on the basis of their ethnicity. They also took Yazidi women as sex slaves and raped and tortured them.

Or the Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine State in Myanmar, and how there was a mass killing and expulsion of them from the country, forcing them to flee to Bangladesh to take refuge, crating the world’s largest refugee camp.

Or how ISIS killed thousands of people from Christian groups in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Libya because of their faith, leading the US, EU, and UK to label this as religious genocide and condemned their actions.

Has Israel been practicing ethnic cleansing and genocide on Palestinians all these years?

Well, the birth rate of the Palestinian population in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel has been steadily increasing all these years.

So, no. No ethnic cleansing, no genocide. They are free to have as many children as they desire.

The UN Genocide Convention

The United Nations has 5 actions that constitute genocide.

1. Killing members of a target group

Israel is targeting Hamas officials with the aim of wiping out the terrorist group and ensuring that such a deadly attack on Israeli soil doesn’t happen again. I suppose you could call it genocide against Hamas, but they’re killing Hamas because they’re terrorists, not because they’re Palestinian. Shouldn’t everyone believe in genocide against terrorists?

But look at Black Saturday. Look at Hamas’ rhetoric. They repeatedly call for the annihilation of Israel and genocide of Jews. When will the media start believing what they say, word for word, instead of trying to spin it into “hmm maybe they want to kill all the Jews because they’re freedom fighters!”

War has collateral damage. Of course the innocent civilians don’t deserve to suffer just because of the actions of their government, but there have been warnings given to the Palestinian civilians prior to Israel striking the areas. There are consequences of attacking a country first, and then having that country attack you back.

2. Causing people of the group serious bodily or mental harm

The UN refers to sexual violence as the prime example of non-fatal harm.

Sexual violence has occurred. Hamas have kidnapped and raped women and even paraded the bodies of half-naked women around. But I f Israel had done the same, it’ll be the first thing appearing on everyone’s BBC push notifications (without even being confirmed as true).

3. Imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group

Many people refer to the blockade that Israel imposed around the Gaza Strip as an example of this.

This blockade was imposed by both Israel and Egypt in 2005. Its aim was to prevent smuggling of weapons into Gaza, and isolate the reign of Hamas to the region. This was to ensure the safety of Israel and Egypt.

Did this blockade pose serious challenges to the Gazan civilians? Of course. But that’s a consequence of having a terrorist government. If you have a terrorist group running your country, don’t be surprised if neighbouring countries are extra careful about who or what they allow in or out of the borders.

Many authorities from other Arab nations have also expressed approval of Egypt’s border restrictions, and even encouraged Egypt to flood the terror tunnels that Hamas has dug under the city. As a side note, other Arab nations have not historically been very kind or welcoming to Palestinians. Syria has killed over 4000 Palestinians, and many Arab countries are now refusing any refuge for Palestinians. But no one cares about that because it doesn’t make Israel look bad. All they do now is use the images of dead Palestinians under the hands of Syria and reuse them to propagate fake news.

The blockade has been labelled as a human rights violation because of collective punishment. Many humanitarian organisations believe that the blockade has caused the Palestinian civilians disproportionate harm.

Contrary to popular belief, Israel isn’t disallowing humanitarian aid from coming through the borders. Fuel, food, hygiene products, clothes, and shoes have been coming through the borders regularly for years. The Gaza Strip also has electricity and internet access and water.

Do all these items reach the Palestinian civilians? Well, there has been evidence that Hamas has been intercepting a lot of the supplies sent by humanitarian groups. This is not surprising since the UNRWA tweeted that Hamas has stole fuel from hospitals in Gaza in order to launch more rockets at Israel (but quickly deleted it after realising that it goes against their agenda to paint Hamas in a bad light.) In addition, the returned hostages have mentioned that there are many aid supplies hidden in the terror tunnels by Hamas. Instead of giving them to the civilians, they are hoarding it for themselves.

There has also been video evidence that some people are reselling these aid items in stores at exorbitant prices in order to turn profits. This has been well-documented for the last 10 years.

Is blockading the region to mitigate terrorism a disproportionate response? Well, it’s like asking if heightened security and stricter border control at airports is a disproportionate response after 9/11. Is being cautious and worrying about the security of your country an irrational reaction to the constant threat of terrorism?

4. Preventing births

Gaza’s population growth rate per annum is about 1.99%, which is the 39th highest in the world! Their population is allowed to propagate freely.

Israel isn’t preventing births of Palestinian babies.

5. Forcibly transferring children out of the group

No, Israel hasn’t been taking Palestinian children and forcing them to convert/keeping young Palestinian girls as sex slaves. Like I said, if this was truly happening, all the news outlets would be so quick to publish the story before verifying it.

Can we trust the UN Genocide standards?

The UN is known for corruption and have been exploiting the Palestinian people by selling them the humanitarian supplies instead of distributing them for free, which they should because these supplies literally are donations.

The UN also has differing standards of what they would label as genocide. For example, they refuse to call what China is doing to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as genocide, even though the situation does fit many of their own criteria.

Hence, to all of you out there overusing these terms without knowing what they mean, make up your own mind about things. No one can force you to believe anything and no one can force you to change your mind.

But at the very least, do your due diligence and educate yourself before spouting tired buzzwords. Repeating misinformation doesn’t help anyone and can be very harmful.

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moonlightsapphic · 2 years

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This meme is such bullshit. Especially the way it's been going around among South Asian communities is just sooo grossly queerphobic.

Repeat after me:

There are children in rural regions of South Asia who do not have reliable access to basic necessities like safe running water, electricity, food and shelter AND are struggling with their sexual orientation, gender dysphoria, or other LGBTQ+ identity whilst living in countries with colonial British (ie sexist, homophobic, transphobic) laws—at the same time. They don't have basic physical needs OR mental and emotional needs met. And they have always existed among us.

Netflix doesn't always have great queer rep—but it popularized shows with queer rep in deeply bigoted countries. It humanized queer people to a miraculous degree in geographical areas in which progress has been frustratingly slow.

Netflix made western queer people visible and undeniable.

So South Asian bigots are now doing what they do best: They’re trying to gatekeep who can identify as LGBTQ+. They’re trying to reframe queer identity as some sort of privileged activity that only white people can indulge in. They’re trying to force the narrative that it’s, like, so ironic for South Asians in formerly oppressed countries to be watching characters struggling with gender and sexuality. Like it’s the same thing as watching The Kardashians for entertainment. Absolutely irrelevant to Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani lives.

I’m an incredibly privileged South Asian woman. I went to a good school and had access to books to read and learn about the LGBTQ+ community, among other things. (I pirated them off the internet.) My parents have been supportive of my moving abroad and funding my incredibly expensive education. (Fellow desi people will understand that this is a Big Deal.) My family will, however, not be accepting of my bisexuality or my girlfriend, who is part of the healthiest relationship I’ve ever been in and perhaps is the love of my life. Her parents are a lot more conservative than mine. The number of LGBTQ+-affirming people we know from our home country is in the range of single digits. Someday, we will have to decide whether we want to continue being with each other and get cut off by nearly everyone we know and quite possibly put our lives at risk if we ever go back to our hometown again. (There are a big number of bigoted vigilantes there quite willing to gang up on people they don’t like and murder them. Our laws criminalize homosexual acts.)

It’s either that or simply break up and find men that our families favour to marry. (Muslim for me, Hindu for her, well-off and pretty and able-bodied and educated for both of us.)

My identity has the potential to jeopardize my entire life, and my mental health has taken a huge turn for the worst because of all this. We’ve had to overcome so much together. It’s so unfair. As healing as my time here has been for me, I can’t bear living in America sometimes. I can’t bear witnessing all of this freedom and acceptance and not knowing if it can ever truly be mine.

I can’t imagine what it’s like for those less privileged than me, who are alienated, bullied, abandoned. Who have to resort to surviving through any means possible. My heart goes out to you. I think about you. I want to live to write my biography and hope it will reach the next generation. I want to hear all the stories that were never told. I wonder how many of us have been erased, how many more have to be sacrificed for decades to pass and for us to finally be given the dignity and respect we deserve.

You deserve to be here. You deserve to explore yourself and find out who you are. You deserve to exist and be happy. You deserve that just as much as you deserve safety, security, a roof over your head, food on the table, and loved ones surrounding you.

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shitpostingperidot · 4 months

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Kamala Khan’s bookshelves

Kamala’s room in The Marvels is an absolute treasure trove of little details to zoom in on, and I’ve identified so many books on her shelves!

Shelf 1, top to bottom:

1. Landmark Experiments in Twentieth Century Physics by George L. Trigg

College-level book about experiments that helped us learn about x-rays, lasers, isotopes, superconductors, and all kinds of other things I don’t understand. Meant to be more practical than theoretical since it talks about the actual methodologies of these experiments. Could be for school, or for Kamala and Bruno to run their own tests of Kamala’s powers. The first of many books in the Khan house that come from Dover Publications.

2. Space Time Matter by Hermann Weyl

“An esoteric initiation into space time physics” -Amazon reviewer. I’m gonna be real, I don’t understand half the words in this book description, but apparently it’s famous for introducing gauge theory, which was later reborn as phase transformations in quantum theory. I can see this being something Kamala reads to try and understand the bangle transporting her to the Partition. Also from Dover.

3. A Map to the Sun by Sloane Leong

A graphic novel about a high school girl’s basketball team learning to work together despite their many differences and conflicts. Also it has a gorgeous color palette. Seems fairly self explanatory why it’s in this movie. I’ll definitely be borrowing this from my library! Like my friend Kamala recommended a book to me herself.

4. The Good Immigrant anthology edited by Nikesh Shukla

21 essays from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people in the UK about their experiences. It was crowdfunded initially, extremely critically acclaimed, and has gotten spinoffs and sequels. Riz Ahmed, who is British Pakistani, is one contributor, and a fun fact is that Rish Shah (Kamran from Ms. Marvel) worked with Riz Ahmed in an Oscar winning short called The Long Goodbye. Also, the editor, Nikesh Shukla, is currently writing the Spider-Man India comics series!

5. Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam

A coming-of-age story about 3 young adults with complicated family, friend, and romantic relationships between them. They have to travel from Brooklyn to Bangladesh together one summer and thereby discover a lot about themselves. I haven’t read it, but there seems to be a ton of complex representation of LGBTQ, POC, immigrant, and Muslim characters. I wonder how much the three main characters can be compared with our three characters with complex relationships in The Marvels, and I wonder which character Kamala most relates to!

6. I can’t tell! The font is bugging the hell out of me because theoretically, with that amount of contrast, I should be able to read a word when I get two inches from the TV and mess with the settings. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

7. I also can’t tell, but I’m being easier on myself because the title is written in white on a yellow background. It’s not the only book I know off the top of my head with this color scheme (Yellowface by RF Kuang) because the title is definitely multiple words. Help!

Shelf 2, right to left:

1. One Night that Changes Everything by Lauren Barnholdt

A YA romance where, through a convoluted series of events, a teenager must face all of her insecurities in one night. I can see Kamala devouring this as brain candy after wrestling with those advanced science books, or using it as fic inspiration!

2. Can’t tell, but love the color scheme!

This next one is a weird one, because I am 100% sure of what book it is, but I cannot find a picture of a matching edition.

3. Wizard at Large by Terry Brooks

It’s definitely, without a doubt, this book (where a character and a magical medallion are accidentally transported to Earth from another realm and switches places with an evil genie). Like those are the words on the spine and the plot of the book is an obvious choice for this movie. The fonts match on the audiobook, the ebook, and the next two books in the series. But try as I might, I cannot find any proof on the internet that the physical book that appears in Kamala’s room, that uses those two fonts and that spine formatting, exists. This is haunting me…

4. (On the other side of the box) It’s not The Twilight Saga Eclipse, but I definitely thought it was before I could watch in high definition. I think it’s a journal or sketchbook of Kamala’s; there are a bunch scattered throughout the room.

Shelf 3:

I’ve only identified the bottom book, which is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity by Max Born (Dover Publications). The third one up is HAUNTING me, it looks SO identifiable and yet!

Living Room Side Table:

1. Amateur Astronomer’s Handbook by JB Sidgwick (from Dover Publications)

2. Cosmology by Hermann Bondi (also Dover)

Both of these seem less difficult than the science books in Kamala’s room, but reviewers note that it helps to know calculus when reading Cosmology. Idk which member of the Khan family is reading these, but I love their family’s connection to the stars 💫

Tbh I’m having so much fun doing this! And I really wish we got to see Monica’s living space so I can analyze her books 😭

#the marvels #kamala khan #ms marvel

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