#queer survival

[that-gay-jedi]

Where is gender kept?

Not in the genitals nor the brain:

in the claws,

in the teeth,

in the piercing-gaze and the reflex strike,

in the hunt-tuned ears,

in the venom sac,

in the shadow.

-

Where is gender revealed?

Not in balloons and colour-coded rooms:

on night walks,

in wars fought

through the payroll and the picket line,

in preventable pain,

in the youthful dead

who nip at the heels of the living.

#trans #trans rage #queer survival #monstrous #feminism

[fanhackers]

Fannish proximity across time and space

Sedgwick wrote on the transformative potential of queer reading practices in ways that, to me, also describe fannish modes of attachment:  "I think that for many of us in childhood the ability to attach intently to a few cultural objects, objects of high or popular culture or both, objects whose meaning seemed mysterious, excessive, or oblique in relation to the codes most readily available to us, became a prime resource for survival. We needed for there to be sites where the meanings didn’t line up tidily with each other, and we learned to invest those sites with fascination and with love."  In the same passage, she writes of “a visceral near-identification with the writing I cared for”: not with one or more of the characters, but with the writing; “on the level of sentence structure, metrical pattern, rhyme.” This fannish merging with the text – with its aesthetic form – was “one way of trying to appropriate what seemed the numinous and resistant power of the chosen objects.”  Meanwhile, Carolyn Dinshaw, a medieval scholar and one of the founding co-editors of the journal GLQ, was writing about the “queer ... touch across time”: the intense affective attachments, including identification, which produce queer  – that is, oblique, resistant and desiring  – relationships to the medieval past, which exceed and refuse normative trajectories and linear histories, and find in medieval pasts and texts that “numinous and resistant power” that makes certain art objects, for their fans, potent “resources for survival.” Finding in the distant past another way of organising sexuality, selfhood and experience, which we somehow recognise, which we somehow need – the “defiant and confused” feeling of knowing, without knowing how we know, that this book, this person, this artwork, is “one of ours,” as Alison Hennegan describes in “On Becoming a Lesbian Reader.” The queer touch across time retrieves though this is too passionless a word – it rescues artworks and archives from the dustbin of history, resonating with Taylor J. Acosta’s characterisation of fandom as “a historiographic approach in the Benjamanian tradition, not as an explicit critique of history, with its pretences to critical distance, total understanding, and specificity, but rather as an alternative practice in which an art produced of love and affect can function historically.” The queer or fannish touch across time produces “worthless knowledge”: knowledge that has no value that can be registered by neoliberal-capitalist metrics and that is for that reason invaluable. (It strikes me that my desire to quote from these texts, to show them to you, is itself fannish. Look! Look at this thing that I love! It says something to me that cannot be said in any other form. Does it speak to you too? What does it say?)

WILLIS, I. ‘AFTERWORD: FAN THEORY/THEORY FAN OR I LOVE THIS BOOK’. FANDOM AS METHODOLOGY. LONDON: GOLDSMITHS PRESS.

#affect #author: else/xun #fan studie #knowledge production #proximity #queer survival

[gaileyfrey]

We are not too much

Content warning for frank discussion of queerphobia and mass violence; scroll until you see bold for a link to ways you can support queer victims of recent mass violence.

I have loved ones who express that queer people are fine as long as we’re not loud or obvious, as long as we aren’t too much. It’s hard for me to construct a response to that, because I believe – I truly believe – that they think they’re being generous and kind in those moments. I feel a deep longing to make them understand that this perspective is part of a legacy of violence against queer people, but I don’t know quite how to help them get there.

The first thing I think I want them to understand is that this framing insists on purely passive allyship. “It’s okay as long as I don’t have to know about it” is a succinct way to express “I will not stand up for your rights, because the moment you let me know that your rights are being violated, you’ve made me aware of who you are, which erases your humanity in my eyes.” It’s a preemptive act of looking away from pain and joy alike. I simply cannot believe that anyone who sees the world this way would help me, if they knew I needed help because of my queerness.

I also yearn for them to see how their perspective is rooted in an idea that queer people need to be approvable in order to be allowed. It leads to a notion that we should tuck ourselves and our joy away, that we should corral ourselves in order to be acceptable. But acceptability is a smokescreen. “It’s fine as long as I can’t see it” or “it’s fine as long as I can’t tell” are deceptive little phrases, because “it’s fine” is code for “I will allow you to be safe; I will not hurt you.” This is an expression that our queer minds, hearts, and bodies must be invisible, or else eliminated. When safety is conditional and dependent on unilateral interpersonal approval, it isn’t safety at all. Even when we meet those ill-defined conditions of acceptability, safety is far from guaranteed. Isolating queer spaces doesn’t prevent violence from intruding on them. Meeting the conditions of those who do not love us accomplishes nothing, because they want nothing for us and see nothing in us.

I have loved ones who express this notion that we are okay as long as we are hidden, and I still don’t know how to engage with those people. Not while knowing that I can’t extend unconditional trust in response to conditional respect. But I also have other loved ones, loved ones who I trust beyond any doubt, because I know they don’t see my humanity or the humanity of my community as conditional. I know that I can count on them to love, uplift, and celebrate my queer mind, my queer heart, my queer body. I have a beautiful community that comes together in moments of crisis, and I know that we are more than capable of carrying each other even when those who ought to help carry us refuse. We rejoice together, we celebrate together, we hurt together, we heal together.

We are never, ever too much. We are always just enough.

Click here for a round-up of verified resources you can use to support victims of the Club Q shooting, their communities, and their families. The list is and will continue to be updated as those impacted communicate their evolving needs. The most recent update reflects their request for direct financial support, as the club being closed is directly harming their ability to make ends meet.

#club Q #club q shooting #queer community #queer survival #sarah gailey #how to help #stone soup

[rayehendrix]

This poem of mine is going around again on Twitter, so I figured I'd share it here too. Queer joy is queer survival. We will win.

#poetry #queer poetry #colorado springs #taco bell #poem #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #queer joy #queer survival #queer futurity #taco bell quarterly #raye hendrix

[strawlessandbraless]

This is gay sex

#cas would not have survived this coordinated assault #spn #supernatural #spn 3x07 #dean winchester #jensen ackles #3x07 #fresh blood #castiel #live free or twihard #vampire #destiel #queer #deancas #dean posting

[k-wame]

#mate your cock's in the hands of a bloke with pretty cocksuckin lips --you aint surviving this encounter bruv #its the fingers up the bottle for me 👅 #lgbtedit #gay couple #fake profile netflix #perfil falso #queer #lgbt #gay #homoeroticism #tvedit #flirting #flirtatious #julián cerati #mauricio hénao #adrián x inti #adrián ferrer #beautiful men #couple #affection #intimacy #longing #romantic

[nopeleavemealoone]

Shoutout to chuuya for the time he decided to enable corruption, which literally destroys his organs, and proceed to bitch slap a dragon with a building just so he could go and punch his boyfriend. The queers have outdone themselves.

#Dazai was so sad he didn’t get a kiss and instead shoved this man in his crotch #Y’all are so fvcking gay #Chuuya nakahara #chuuya supremacy #dazai x chuuya #soukoku #skk #bungou stray dogs #bungou gay dogs #dazai osamu #dead apple #bsd #long live the queers (ignoring current meursalt shenaniganry #I firmly believe they’ll both survive meursalt) #(Am i spelling meursalt correctly) #Bungou stray sogs #Mine

[coconuts-are-mammals]

gays, claim your "I survived the summer of 2023" tokens here

#see also: “I barely survived the summer of 2023” tokens as well as “I didn't survive the summer of 2023” tokens #Hozier #Unreal Earth #good omens season 2 #go2 #Wwdits #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #Barbie movie #red white and royal blue #rwarb #heartstopper series #honestly I'm probably forgetting a lot still. feel free to bury me nameless in Boston and spit on my grave #should that be the case #but hi. hey. we still alive?? #lgbtq #I also mean gays more so as queers but I personally am more inclined to use the word gay when describing this lovely community #Even though in this state none of us are happy #neil gaiman #Nimona

[whatisgodtoanonbeliever]

I never thought something would mean this much for me. I've always been chill with my queerness; I let it flow wherever and I don't focus much on it. But being bisexual has always been a label for me. Headcanoning characters as bisexual is just par for the course. And tonight, getting Buck confirmed bi hit me like a truck. Seeing that play out has me feeling so seen and proud and I am typing through tears on my couch that I get to have this.

So anyone who has something shitty to say because it isn't with eddie can consider themselves blocked. In this moment I swear to god it's not about them. Next week I'll go back to my fun shipping but this week is for me. For those of us who never realized how much having a character so dear to us be bi would mean.

#911 fox #911 abc #evan buckley #evan buck buckely #bisexuality #queer #i survived the trenches with teen wolf and jeff davis #seeing those headcanons play out with a character i LOVE means the world

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

Chim in the basketball scene.

#911 spoilers #he's just trying to survive whatever minefield of queer insanity he just stumbled into

[biggersteinkins]

James Sunderland Hello Kitty Crossover

#silent hill 2 #silent hill #silent hill fanart #video games #silent hill 3 #silent hill 4 #silent hill 2 remake #pyramid head #james sunderland #hello kitty #sanrio #survival horror #retro gaming #artists on tumblr #queer artist #meme

[pityroad]

— In the Future, Jay Hulme, in '100 Queer Poems, an anthology' (2022)

[text ID: I've forgotten what my face looks like / but can easily describe my spine. / The way it bends under pressure, / the way it curves, but will not break.]

#jay hulme #in the future #queer poetry #100 queer poems #quotes #mine #i couldn't draw my own face if god asked #bodies #survival

[candied-cae]

Real talk y’all?

They musta put something extra special in his water this season because - lord have mercy - he is GLOWING and I am ON MY KNEES. I keep coming back to this one just to look at him. Look at him, y'all. LOOK AT HIM!

HE'S SO FUCKING GORGEOUS I'M GOING TO DIE!

JUST ONE CHANCE- JUST ONE CHANCE IS ALL I ASK-

#Cae Has Lots of Feelings About Our Flag Means Death #The prettiest man in the world #I'm obsessed with him #As I should be #Look at the material #Zoom in on all the flaws he doesn't have #Take it all in #Because holy shit #It astounds me every damn time #He's simply the cutest patootie on the big blue sea #and I am weak for it #This cast is way too attractive for queer people #and they're starring in the queer show! #They got hot men and hot women and hot enbies and we're just supposed to survive? #No. They pulled us in with the good ass show and got us by surprise #I'm spending hours watching and rewatching this goddamn show full of pretty people I can't kiss and it's painful but so sweet I keep coming #Our Flag Means Death #OFMD #Oluwande #Oluwande Boodhari #Yes. he served last season too. But… damn it’s a different ball game this year <3

[prismatic-et-al]

taz ethersea is really just like. hey listen. this story is about grief. it’s about anger. it’s about mourning the things you had to leave, but if you hadn’t left you would not have survived them. it’s about hating where you came from but knowing deep down you can never, will never be from anywhere else. it’s about the need to become better than a past you still wish you could go back to. it’s about “we celebrate the burial of the architects of our unjust world” and “I do not want to be only resentment but when I see your face resentment is all that I am” and “I just wanted you to see it once.” it’s about finding a way to become something new in spite of every weeping ache torn into you by the past. it’s about the stubborn and deliberate persistence of life in the face of a hostile environment. ethersea says this story is about hope. it’s about consequences. it’s about effort. most importantly it’s about how nermal’s pile has a sale going on right now don’t miss out on this week’s deals

#it's also about amber gris' hot butch swag but that's self-evident #I don't even need to point that out #anyway. thinks about destructive environments and how they shape you. #thinks about queer narratives of leaving a place you could never survive and becoming something more but still tied to that first place #thinks about climate change and our imminent literal self-destruction #the adventure zone #taz ethersea #the adventure zone ethersea #zoox anthellae #devo la main #amber gris #taz ethersea spoilers #sorta #etal.txt

[museofdeity]

physically disabled folk of tumblr, what’s the funniest/weirdest thing you’ve been told in response to your disability?

mine was: “it’s because you’re always on that phone”

i have chronic progressive muscle/joint pain.

#ablebodies dni #ableds dni #actually disabled #disabled queer #disabled posting #disabled #disabled life #physically disabled #ableds are weird #they wont survive the winter

[gothfatherr]

me chilling in my own little aro world trying to survive each day in this amatonormative society

#aro #aromantic #lgbt #queer #aromantic spectrum #aroace #arospec #aromanticism #aro positivity #aroallo #amatonormativity #fuck amatonormativity #fr i need music to survive