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lesblob · 4 years

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Edie Windsor & Thea Spyer 46 years of true love

#lesbian.jpg #history.jpg

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you ever notice how lesbian stereotypes are usually things that make women hard to control? confidence, physical strength, independence, being heavily involved in social activities with other women (ie, softball), getting angry at injustice; these are all things that are objectively positive characteristics. but they’re seen as undesirable in women because it makes the task of breaking them into a submissive, suggestible sex object much more difficult.

all of these traits, including lesbianism, are seen as interchangable or connected because they’re all threats to male domination.

#lesbian.txt #misogyny tw #lesbophobia tw

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lesblob · 4 years

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Washington Square park, New York 1970 - Ellen Shumsky

#lgbt.jpg #history.jpg

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lesblob · 4 years

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June is pride month and we as a community need to remember that our history was not a peaceful history. We did not shy away from punching police officers and destroying property because the police sure as hell did not shy away from beating and raping and killing us and raiding our bars and businesses. We did not shy away from breaking the law because our very existence was against the law. And we cannot forget that working class lgbt people of colour, especially black gays and lesbians, were and still are fundamental in the fight against the pervasive system of homophobia that still exists today. Remember and acknowledge them, and remember and acknowledge that we would not have our rights if not for riots and revolutions.

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lesblob · 4 years

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do you have any tips for someone questioning their sexuality?

You don’t need to figure out the answer right away! It’s perfectly alright to take your time and sort through all your feelings and thoughts and you do not need to feel pressured to identify as one thing or another. And remember that no matter what your sexuality ends up being, you are not worth any less as a human being than if your sexuality were to be something else.

If you’re specifically wondering if you might be a lesbian affected by comp het, I encourage you to read through my post on compulsory heterosexuality/coercive heteronormativity: https://lesblob.tumblr.com/post/182231293802/how-to-recognize-compulsory-heterosexuality

#ask #anonymous #comp het

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Especially remember Stormé and Gladys and all other black lesbians who have fought for LGBT rights all over the world both in the past and to this day when you celebrate this year’s pride. Black lives matter, and black lesbian lives matter.

This pride, let’s remember all the lesbians who have been monumental in establishing rights for the LGBT community.

Let’s remember Stormé DeLarverie, the black butch lesbian drag king who threw the first punch that started the Stonewall Riots of 1969, possibly the most famous event in LGBT history.

Let’s remember Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the lesbian couple who founded the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), which was the first lesbian organization in the United States.

Let’s remember Barbara Gittings, the lesbian activist who founded the New York chapter of the DOB, was a prominent figure in the movement to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and is now widely regarded as the mother of the LGBT rights movement.

Let’s remember Ruth Simpson, a former president of the New York chapter of the DOB, who also created the first lesbian community centre in the United States.

Let’s remember Gladys Bentley, a black crossdressing lesbian blues singer who is said to have publicly married another woman in a civil ceremony in 1931, albeit not recognized by the state.

Let’s remember Marcia Kadish and Tanya McCloskey, the first gay couple to be legally married in the United States, after Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2004.

Let’s remember Edith Windsor, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case United States v. Windsor, which overturned the Defence of Marriage Act in the United States in 2015, and legalized gay marriage all across the USA.

Let’s remember all the other lesbians who have fought for gay rights, those outside of the United States and those who didn’t quite make it into the history books. Let’s show our love for all the lesbians who have once lived on this earth, and all the lesbians who are still alive right now. In this heteronormative and patriarchal world, our existence is in itself revolutionary, and each and every lesbian is helping pave the way for our liberation.

#self reblob

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lesblob · 4 years

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My blog is supposed to be solely for lesbian/LGBT content, but having the platform that I do, this is too important to not post about. As a non-black lesbian, I must speak up against the injustices faced by the black community, and I urge my followers to do the same. The LGBT community owes so much to black gays and lesbians both historically and today. Please consider donating to any of these organizations shown in the picture. I will provide the links for them below.

George Floyd’s Family’s GoFundMe: https://gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

Minnesota Freedom Fund: https://minnesotafreedomfund.org

Black Visions Collective: https://www.blackvisionsmn.org

Reclaim the Block: https://www.reclaimtheblock.org

Campaign Zero: https://www.joincampaignzero.org

Unicorn Riot: https://unicornriot.ninja

Both NBPOC (non-black people of colour) and white people have the responsibility to combat anti-blackness in our communities. As an Asian lesbian, it is my responsibility to combat anti-black racism in the Asian and LGBT communities. I again urge my followers, if you have not already, start supporting black lives and uplifting black voices today.

#black lives matter #blm #george floyd #justice for george floyd #nbpoc #police brutality #anti blackness #racism #poc #lgbt poc #black lgbt #wlwoc #lesbian #gay #anti blackness tw #police brutality tw #racism tw #my post

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lesblob · 4 years

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Black bi/lesbian women

Day 1 - Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886-1939)

Ma Rainey was the first Vaudeville entertainer to incorporate the blues into her performances, which led to her to – perhaps justifiably – become known as the “Mother of the Blues.” Although she was married, Rainey was known to take women as lovers, and her song “Prove It on Me Blues” directly references her preference for male attire and female companionship. Rainey often found herself in trouble with the police for her lesbian behavior, including an incident in 1925 when she was arrested for taking part in an orgy at home involving women in her chorus. Bessie Smith bailed her out of jail.

Day 2 - Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)

Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the Harlem Renaissance. During her lifetime, she published four novels and more than 50 short stories, plays and essays. She is perhaps best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. Today, nearly every black woman writer of significance – including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker – acknowledges Hurston as a key influence. Although she was never public about her sexuality, the book Wrapped in Rainbows, the first biography of Zora Neale Hurston in more than 25 years, explores her deep friendships with luminaries such as Langston Hughes, her sexuality and short-lived marriages, and her mysterious relationship with vodou.

Day 3 - Bessie Smith (1894-1937)

Widely referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith is considered one of the most popular female blues singers of the 1920s and 1930s and is credited, along with Louis Armstrong, as a major influence on jazz vocalists to this day. Bessie Smith began her professional career in 1912 by singing with Ma Rainey and subsequently performed in various touring minstrel shows and cabarets. As a solo artist, Smith was an integral part of Columbia’s Race Records, and her albums each sold 20,000 copies or more. Although married to a man named Jack Gee, Smith had an ongoing affair with a chorus girl named Lillian Simpson.

Day 4 - Mabel Hampton (1902–1989)

Mabel Hampton was a dancer during the Harlem Renaissance and later became an LGBT historian, philanthropist and activist. She met her partner, Lillian Foster, in 1932 and the two stayed together until Foster’s death in 1978. Hampton marched in the first National Gay and Lesbian March on Washington, and she appeared in the films Silent Pioneers and Before Stonewall. In 1984, Hampton spoke at New York City’s Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade. Hampton’s collection of memorabilia, ephemera, letters and other records documenting her history are housed at the Lesbian Herstory Archives and provide a window into the lives of black women and lesbians during the Harlem Renaissance.

Day 5 - Josephine Baker (1906–1975)

Josephine Baker was the 20th century’s “first black sex symbol.” An American dancer, singer and actress, Baker renounced her American citizenship in 1937 to become French. Despite the fact she was based in Europe, she participated in the American Civil Rights Movement in her own way. She adopted adopting 12 multi-ethnic orphans (long before Angelina Jolie) whom she called the “Rainbow Tribe,” she refused to perform for segregated audiences (which helped to force the integration of performance venues in the United States) and she was the only woman invited to speak at the March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr. Although she was married four times, her biographers have since confirmed her multiple affairs with women, including Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

Day 6 - Gladys Bentley (1907-1960)

Gladys Bentley was an imposing figure. She was a 250-pound, masculine, dark-skinned, deep-voiced jazz singer who performed all night long at Harlem’s notorious gay speakeasies during the Harlem Renaissance while wearing a white tuxedo and top hat. Bentley was notorious for inventing obscene lyrics to popular songs, performing with a chorus line of drag queens behind her piano, and flirting with women in her audience from the stage. Unlike many in her day, she lived her life openly as a lesbian and claimed to have married a white woman in Atlantic City. An article in Ebony magazine quoted her as saying, “It seems I was born different. At least, I always thought so …. From the time I can remember anything, even as I was toddling, I never wanted a man to touch me.”

Day 7 - Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965)

Lorraine Hansberry was an African-American playwright and author. Her best known work, A Raisin in the Sun, was inspired by her family’s own battle against racial bias in Chicago. Hansberry explored controversial themes in her writings in addition to racism in America, including abortion, discrimination, and the politics of Africa. In 1957 she joined the lesbian organization Daughters of Bilitis and contributed letters to their magazine, The Ladder, that addressed feminism and homophobia. While she addressed her lesbian identity in the articles she wrote for the magazine, she wrote under the initials L.H. for fear of being discovered as a black lesbian.

Day 8 - Audre Lorde (1934–1992)

In her own words, Audre Lorde was a “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” Lorde began writing poetry at age 12 and published her first poem in Seventeen magazine at age 15. She helped found Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the world’s first publisher run by women of color, in 1980. Her poetry was published regularly throughout her life and she served as the State Poet of New York from 1991 to 1992. Lorde explored issues of class, race, age, gender and – after a series of cancer diagnoses — health, as being fundamental to the female experience. She died of liver cancer in 1992.

Day 9 - Barbara Jordan (1936–1996)

Representative Barbara Jordan (D-Texas) was the first African-American woman elected to Congress from a southern state. In 1976, she delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, marking the first time an African-American woman had ever done so. Her speech has since been ranked as one of the top 100 American Speeches of the 20th century and is considered by some historians to be among the best convention keynote speeches in modern history. Although Jordan never publicly acknowledged her sexual orientation, her Houston Chronicle obituary mentioned her longtime companion of more than 20 years, Nancy Earl. Her legacy inspired the Jordan Rustin Coalition, a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the empowerment of Black LGBT people and families.

Day 10 - June Jordan (1936-2002)

June Jordan was one of the most widely-published and highly-acclaimed African-American writers of her generation. A poet, playwright, speaker, teacher, journalist and essayist Jordan was also known for her fierce commitment to human rights political activism. Jordan said of her bisexuality, “bisexuality means I am free and I am as likely to want to love a woman as I am likely to want to love a man, and what about that? Isn’t that what freedom implies?” Her influential voice defined the cutting edge of both American poetry and politics during the Civil Rights Movement. She published 27 before her death from breast cancer in 2002 at the age of 65. Three more of her books have been published posthumously.

#long post cw #history.idk #wlw.idk #lesbian.idk #racism ment #homophobia ment

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lesblob · 4 years

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