#I worked as a social historian for one summer can you tell? I was paid £8.75 an hour to tell people this. So you guys owe me like £3.50

[aspiringhorrorauthor]

As is tradition with Dracula Daily, let me give you today’s Cultural Lesson Based On Today’s Entry. Let’s talk about money.

See, if you’re thinking Dracula and the characters are handling what we see today as British money, don’t be fooled! Dracula is set in the 1890s, and they use an entirely different money system to what we use now, it just seems on the surface that it’s the same.

For context, if you didn’t know, Britain uses pounds (£) and pence (p) as the currency now, with 100p to £1. This is called decimalisation, and has been in practice since the 1970s. Before then, we were the last country in the world to still use the Roman monetary system.

In the Victorian era, there were 3 used measurements of currency: Pounds (L), Shillings (s) and pence (d), which was written in that order: l.s.d, so a sink in a shop may list the price as 1.7.2, which would be 1 pound, 7 shillings and 2 pence.

Now lets break those down a little more. There are 240 pennies to the pound, and 12 pence to the shilling. That makes 20 shillings to the pound. Most working class laborers would be using shillings as their highest coin in day-to-day living. You could get a pint of beer for a couple of pence. A pound was an incredible amount of money to your average person (maybe less so to the fancy characters of Dracula).

But I want to talk about the coins.

See, a penny was not the lowest coin in circulation. That was a farthing, which was worth ¼ (a quarter) of a penny. Then next was a half penny (or ha’penny if you prefer). Of course there was the penny. Then there was a two pence (tuppence) and a three pence (thrupence) piece. Then you had your half shilling (sixpence, pronounced more like sixpunce, with a ‘u’ rather than an ‘e’), and the shilling itself (twelve pence, remember? Also known colloquially as ‘bob’). Then you had the florin, which was 2 shillings exactly (24 pence). From there you had your half crown, which was worth 2 shillings and six pence, for a total of 30 pence (though you’d never call it that), and then a crown, which was 5 shillings. From there the next step is the half-sovereign, worth half a pound (120 pence, or 10 shillings), and finally the gold sovereign coin, worth £1, or 240 pennys, or 20 shillings.

Yes, that’s genuinely the method of money these characters are using. Some old people insist it was easier than the current system.

Here’s some more fun money facts in case they come up later!

A guinea is a pound and a shilling (1.1.0, or 252 pence), and was used to make things seem a little cheaper to wealthy buyers. It’s used from time to time in Victorian books so it’s worth knowing.

The correct way to read out prices is ‘[x] and [y]’, so say you were selling something and wanted a shilling and fivepence for it, you’d ask for “1 and 5”. This is often used for the stereotypical cost of a half a crown, so when someone in a period drama asks for “2 and 6”, what they’re asking for is 2 shillings and sixpence.

There is a fairly obscure coin that I’m not sure was in circulation at this time which was nicknamed ‘The Barmaid’s grief’, it was only used for a few years. This was worth 4 shillings and was the same shape and (very nearly) size as a crown (5 shillings). So people would buy a pint of beer, the barmaid would pick up the coin in a hurry and not realise that it wasn’t a crown, and give 4 shillings back along with change from a shilling for the beer. So people made money from buying beer. It was not a good time to be a barmaid.

#Dracula daily #money #british money #Yes I also laughed when i found out old british money was written as Lsd #For someone who is not all that interested in coin collecting I love knowing about the old coins! #My dad was a bairn when they changed the coins around. His dad used to keep the old coins for him from the shop and give out the new coinage #Some people of a certain age get the value of shillings mixed up because post decimilsation a shilling could still be used and was worth 5p. #I worked as a social historian for one summer can you tell? I was paid £8.75 an hour to tell people this. So you guys owe me like £3.50 #For my work here.

[nomlangaclarke]

What Sort of Relationship are you Looking for

TBH, dating apps aren't my vibe. The design of dating apps may also create frustrations for burnt-out users. While which may pose some sure amount of nuisance, it implies that the audience on the website goes via a test, so that other users wont experience undesirable conditions. Then, if you're lucky, you may just develop previous collectively. I might but it is dangerous! There'll usually be pointers as to what types of picture you can put up, and there may be an approval process before it truly will get posted. נערות ליווי בראשון לציון Do you settle for what you had is no longer there? Would you like to search out out what sort of dater you might be, if you do not already know? A stroll in the park sounds type of good. In response to our data, Wot Dennis is presently single. In line with our data, Romeo Santos is at present single. Currently, it seems that Patrick is single. A few dozen in common use. Ross, a 24-12 months-outdated at the moment residing in California (who requested that I take advantage of only his first identify as a result of he didn’t want to debate his dating life publicly), used Facebook Dating whereas he was in the Philippines over the summer and immediately discovered the logical end level of the benefits of an algorithm that matches individuals based mostly on shared interests and connections: As quickly as he logged on, he matched with an ex-girlfriend he’d previously unfriended.

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Yes, now we have our personal lives as well as one another. Of course, at every stage, it's fairly clear to any relationship knowledgeable around you the place you might be, if they have just a couple of minutes of your time and the chance to throw just a few questions your method. As one of the OG dating companies (it’s moved from web site-solely to a web site and app), Match is one in all the preferred on-line dating apps of all time. After some time has passed, come again with a brand new type and confident attitude. You may have come to a safe space, brah. We used to have more, however we have whittled them down now to a couple. Let us know just a little about the best way you two discuss, the way you make decisions, what you find out about one another, and what your plans are, and we'll figure out simply how far down the connection road you might be.

No plans? Yeah proper! No, only small issues. While they could also be efficient otherwise, when it comes to herpes dating Sites, things are likely to get somewhat complex. Telling someone you meet that you've got herpes could be tough at first but it surely does get simpler. It’s a lot easier for the president to brush apart or ignore questions he doesn’t like when he’s strolling alongside the White House grounds. We talk about how a lot we love one another. We mostly discuss logistics. I do not know, my boo is the only individual whose calls I take. I know that I do know, as a result of I simply make it daily, however I couldn't tell you - it's sheer muscle memory. I do not know if I am officially with them yet. I don't even know the place they live. I'm the same but they bought even more lovely! We're like barely frayed versions of the same factor. They worth them the same as I do. Only the youngsters, but we keep which means to go out. That's a passport to the opportunity of the really huge milestones: marriage, youngsters, shopping for a house, mingling your funds, and more. There's a snug interval of dating and becoming ever extra entwined as you meet the mother and father, exchange keys, and say the three little words that make it all official.

[wenamedthedogkylo]

Eyyyy, sum tags bruh

Get to know me tag game!

Tagged by @betweenrivers-betweenworlds, thnx m8.

Rules: Answer these 92 statements and tag 20* people.

LAST:

1. Drink: Aqua, also known by plebs as “water”. 2. Phone call: Uh..... technically to Willa cause I think she was tryna find her phone. 3. Text message: A group text, in which I provided some amusing pictures. 4. Song you listened to: The chocobo theme from FFXV cause Willa’s playing it right now. 5. Time you cried: I genuinely have no clue. It was a while ago and I don’t cry easily. It was probably at a movie or something. Or maybe it was the cry I had after BatB...

HAVE YOU:

6. Dated someone twice: HAH!! No. 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: Yep. 8. Been cheated on: Lmao no 9. Lost someone special: Yeah, a couple. 10. Been depressed: Ahahahahahahaha! Literally 24/7. *finger guns* 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: Of course, gotta do it at least once. I’ve done it more than once, so I’ve had my fill for life.

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS:

12-14: Dark red, black, and dark purple

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

15. Made new friends: Yup. 16. Fallen out of love: Pfft, ain’t even fallen in love so no. 17. Laughed until you cried: Many times. 18. Found out someone was talking about you: Like... in a bad way? Not that I– wait, yes, my older sister talked trash about me to my parents cause she’s a butthurt immature crybaby who can’t have mature conversations to save her life. We all laughed about it. (By that, I mean my parents eye-rolled and sympathized with me and I cackled.) 19. Met someone who changed you: Mmmm... can’t say I have? 20. Found out who your friends are: Lmao I mean I already knew it. I don’t make friends easily, so once you’re a friend, that’s that. 21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: HAH. Nope.

GENERAL:

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: I mean, technically most of them? I knew them either from HS or college, or they’re family? There’s only a few that I’ve met online, and at least one of those that I’ve met online who I’ve subsequently met IRL. 23. Do you have any pets: 1 1/2 cats. 1 cat is fully mine, and I co-parent her brother. 24. Do you want to change your name: I think I’ve effectively done all the name flipping necessary to feel comfortable with it, so nah. 25. What did you do for your last Birthday: Um. That... that’s a good question. I think I just... maybe had good food and watched a movie? 26. What time did you wake up: Like 11:55 AM, just in time to get my computer open to start work XD. 27. What were you doing at midnight last night: Playing the Sims and watching Parks & Rec. 28. Name something you can’t wait for: BLACK PANTHER! THOR: RAGNAROK!! STAR WARS!!! 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: Mmmmmm... I wanna say October? 30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: I’d make myself very wealthy to solve literally every single problem I, my friends, and my parents have. 31. What are you listening to right now: The background music for Final Fantasy XV. 32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Yeah, my grade school principle was a Tom. 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: Capitalism, not having money for the things I need, and how hard it’s been for me to focus on/enjoy things lately because *Jean-Ralphio singing voice* ~even on medication, depression makes my life a walking nightmaaaaaaare!~ 34. Most visited website: Tumblr for sure.

RANDOM INFO:

35. Mole/s: A few all over. 36. Mark/s: Tons of scars, can’t really think of any birthmarks of note. 37. Childhood dream: Archaeologist, dinosaur hunter, historian, astronaut, pirate, queen of England... the list was long and unrealistic. 38. Hair color: Light blondish-brown naturally, purple by choice. 39. Long or short hair: Long as fuuuuuuck. 41. What do you like about yourself: My eyes are a cool color I guess, and my hair is usually really soft and smells good. 42. Piercings: 3 per ear, two on each lobe and one each in the cartilage. 43. Blood type: Literally never been tested so I have no clue. 44. Nickname: Bree is the most common that I usually use in place of my real given name, Briana. My dad used to call me Bubbles for reasons I still don’t know, some friends called me Breezy in HS. Right now the only other big one is Bryn (online only). 45. Relationship status: Single as fuuuuck. 46. Zodiac: Capricorn. 47. Pronouns: She/her and they/them (rarely he/his). 48. Favorite TV Show: Penny Dreadful, it’s the most beautiful show to grace the world ever in the history of everything. 49. Tattoos: None. 50. Right or left hand: Righty. 51. Surgery: I had to get stitches on my head when I was little. It’s a dumb story. 52. Hair dyed in different color: Hell yes! 53. Sport: Quidditch. On the computer. That’s it, I don’t like sports. 55. Vacation: I’d love to properly explore Europe, do some more putzing around the UK and actually visit France. 56. Pair of trainers: Uh, none right now. Like I said, I’m not a sporty, active type of person so if I don’t need ‘em, I don’t got ‘em. I prefer boots and like, Keds-type slip-on flats types of things.

MORE GENERAL:

57. Eating: Nothing healthy, I’ll tell you that much. I’m trying to restructure my diet and exercise rn to lose weight, but 100% honestly that just means I’m gonna get tall 2% S’mores Frappuccinos instead of grande regular (whole milk) ones. 58. Drinking: I’ve been making a conscious effort to drink way more water, especially cause the summer makes me even more dehydrated. 59. I’m about to: Probably play the Sims? Or rewatch Castlevania hehe. 61. Waiting for: MY FIRST COLORED CONTACTS TO GET HERE AL-FUCKING-READY SO I CAN TRY THEM OUT. 62. Want: Student loans paid, more money in my bank account, and my new work schedule to start already. 63. Get married: It would certainly be nice with the right person, but highly unrealistic. 64. Career: Well, I’d prefer to be a film actor already, but until I’m more financially stable, my current job is alright.

WHICH IS BETTER:

65. Hugs or kisses: Both are great, but honesty bomb warning, I’ve been pretty touch-starved my whole life thanks to social anxiety so I’m not used to either, especially kisses. Those tend to come more easily only when I’m drunk and there’s lots of people to kiss. 66. Lips or eyes: Eyes for sure. 67. Shorter or taller: I prefer taller, and in fact would love to be taller myself, but oh well. 68. Older or younger: Younger than me just really weirds me out, although Tom Holland makes me feel a way or two. Older actually feels way better, particularly in the 10-15 years range, but I also know that if just like 1 or 2 years younger feels weird to me, then 10-15 probably would feel too weird to them. So I’m just resigned to living alone for the rest of my days. 70. Nice arms or nice stomach: Nice stomach, and with nice arms would be a bonus. 71. Sensitive or loud: If... if this is referring to sex, then I can’t tell ya as I’ve never done it. I would hazard a guess, just based on who I am, that I’d prefer sensitive? 72. Hook up or relationship: The very idea of a hookup repulses me and drives home how incredibly demisexual I am on top of everything else. 73. Troublemaker or hesitant: Uh....???? I... I guess I’d prefer someone who’s more hesitant than troublemaking, because that means they think about their actions first?

HAVE YOU EVER:

74. Kissed a Stranger: Yes, while highly intoxicated AND high AND in an environment where I felt safe, which was the only way that was ever gonna happen. 75. Drank hard liquor: Yeeeeeeeeup. 76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: YES AND IT’S THE MOST OBNOXIOUS THING EVER ESPECIALLY WHEN THE SHRIVELED DRIED UP CONTACT SUDDENLY SHOWS UP ON YOUR FLOOR A FEW DAYS LATER. 77. Turned someone down: Yeah. 78. Sex on the first date: As stated earlier, never had sex, so no. And I never would unless I already knew the person a while before the date. 79. Broken someone’s heart: Not that I’m aware of. I’m not really heart-breaker material. 80. Had your heart broken: Mostly by myself with my insecurities. 81. Been arrested: No. 82. Cried when someone died: Of course. 83. Fallen for a friend: Yeah, on occasion. Usually briefly before slapping my shit brain for confusing platonic feelings for romantic ones and making me have a crisis. Fuck you, shit-brain, fuck you.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

84. Yourself: Haaaaah, not really. I mean, sometimes? But depression makes that hard. 85. Miracles: I’d like to, but good things rarely happen to me so it’s hard to. 86. Love at first sight: I believe attraction at first sight can be unusually strong, but that should never be conflated with love. That takes time. 87. Santa Claus: Hahah no, my dad accidentally ruined that for me as a kid. 88. Kiss on the first date: If the date was bad, no, absolutely not. If it was okay and there’s some potential there, a kiss on the cheek seems appropriate. If it was great and there’s a lot of potential there, especially if you were friends already, sure go for it.

OTHER:

90. Current best friend name: Willa and Kelsey (I firmly reject the notion that you can only have one best friend and fuck all you ungrateful cunts who don’t love your friends or yourself enough to have more than one). 91. Eye color: Blue-gray 92. Favorite movie: I... I think it might be Phantom of the Opera? I dunno, that’s always a hard fucking question for me.

*Tagging less than 20 cause man I don’t have the focus to count up that many people: @nerfherding-smuggler, @peasantabuser, @aceofaces20, @mel0dyoftears, @hawkeyepancakes, @girl-in-the-coat, @jo-version-2point0, @thegreaterfool, @bimgnusbane, @radioactive-spacemen.

And of course, it’s totally optional. And if you wanna do it but aren’t tagged, well now you’re tagged, go nuts buddy.

#Bree's stuff #about me #about Bree

[queerstorypodcast]

Episode 3- The Riotous Truth

Episode 3- The Riotous Truth: The Stonewall Riots

Welcome again to Queer Story Podcast. The history they didn’t teach you in school. In celebration of pride I want to talk about the Stonewall riots and debunk some of the narrative myths of the events during that fateful summer in 1969.

My name is oso and this is the history they didn’t tell you.

This is complicated piece of Queerstory. I have been working on it for weeks.

I don’t know if any of ya’ll have seen Where Pride Began, the 2015 movie by Roland Emmerich on how the the Stone wall riots,

(Following the story of a young midwestern white boy. Presenting him as the one who felt the rage of “enough is enough”. Gay Liberation Movement and climate of white gay culture white washed and eliminated People of Color and key figures in this story: The Saint Queens: Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P Johnson; Miss Major, and Storme’ Delarvarie. As well as countless other Brown and Black transgender, drag wearing, street, various sexuality experiencing patrons of The Stonewall Inn.)

I wanted to force myself to watch this film, but I decided the general botched history that can be found on Wikepedia and other sources was just as available. I am talking about the re-written narrative, the white-gay-male centered narrative. Since I know the real history involved Latinx and Black folks, the Mob, and a non-planned explosion of being simply fed up with the cops.

Look: we all know that white people like to take credit for things that they didn’t do. Elvis, NASA, Miley Cyrus- Stonewall and the Gay “movement” isn’t any different. Once we face this fact, we can peel back the falsity and see the resplendence of what the energy and magick of the rage of powerful-people-oppressed can accomplish. Doors blown wide open for all of us. This episode is out of gratitude for that rage and strength.

Thank you to all the elders and ancestors that came before us.

Today  we will focus on the retelling of the story of the Stonewall Riots.  If you were at the Stonewall Riots and want to add to or detail the story, please contact me! [email protected]. I would love to make sure the story is correct, and listen to you, as I am piecing it together from various stories I have read.

What I have learned from for this episode are the testimonies of Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P Johnson, Miss Major, Titus Montavlo, and Mark Segal- who via PBS called out the 2015 film as

“...uninterested in any history that doesn’t revolve around its white, male, stereotypically attractive protagonist. It almost entirely leaves out the women who participated in the riots and helped create the Gay Liberation Front, which included youth, trans people, lesbian separatists and people from all other parts of the spectrum of our community.”

Interview here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/stonewall-movie/

Let’s dive into today’s Queer Story!

Once Upon a Time, being gay and being thought of/seen as a “crossdresser” was illegal. As recently, in the state of New York, as 2011! Thanks to laws made in the mid-19th century, clothing choices were limited to the drag of the two binary genders. These current day bathroom bills aren’t too far off from US history’s invested interest in what’s between everyone’s legs. According to transgender historian, Susan Stryker, these laws made in the 1850’s were a “new development specific to gender presentation”.

The “3 Piece Rule”: one must wear 3 pieces of gender appropriate clothing, was a commonly enforced law. These laws effectively gave power to the police to enforce binary gender roles upon civilians who may have multiple, fluid, and/or queer genders. Which the police enforced liberally. This is the climate we find ourselves in 1969.

In 1969 the cops would harass people on the street and raid bars and events, demanding to see if “the genitals matched the clothing”, to which if they didn’t match to the cop’s understanding and, folks would be fined or arrested. In New York City, in the 60’s this was certainly the case.

This was an era of McCarthyism, police raids, removal of LGBTQ people from parks and public places, arrests, and a general loathing and ignorance about Queer and gender variant folks by wholesome hetero America. It was widely accepted that homosexuality and the transgender identities that were classified as “homosexual”, was a mental disorder and many folks were institutionalized at one time or another.

The FBI kept lists of “homosexual” people and establishments that were used to out people at work and subsequently, keep them un-employable. Trans folks, of all genders, were routinely fined, beaten, arrested, and murdered for wearing “clothing of the opposite sex”. This was a time in which the majority of gender non-conforming people, particularly, male assigned at birth feminine people, who identified as Queens, had absolutely no place in society. Queer people across the spectrum were exposed, harassed, institutionalized, jailed, and murdered- legally under the laws of many states.

Once upon a time, on 53 W. Christopher Street in the Big Apple, during the summer of ‘69, the world changed for Queer and gender non-conforming people forever. Today’s Queer Story is centered around the experiences of the the trans women of color, street kids, and gender non-conforming lesbians who frequented the Mafia-run dive known as the Stonewall Inn.

Before we dive into the story of the Stonewall Inn, I want to first mention Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, which had taken place in 1966, three years before Stonewall. In San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, trans folks flocked to Compton’s Cafeteria. One of the reasons they hung out there was because they were not allowed to kick it at the gay bars-  this is an important part of this Queer Story- gay communities, even in Queer meccas like SF and NYC were generally transphobic and exclusionary.

At Compton’s, the cops would frequently raid and arrest people based on if their clothing matched their genitals. Until enough was enough, and a picket against such raids was set in motion by the Queens and Kings who spent time there. The picket was unsuccessful- but the outburst of pure raw transgender rage was not. For a couple of nights trans folks rioted at the cafeteria, and the police were called in. The time and dates of the riots are unknown, as police records are no longer around and newspapers did not cover the story.

Compton’s riots opened pandora’s box of possibilities. Three years later, on the other coast, the rage of trans folks of color rage pushed all of us out of America’s closet once and for all.

The setting of today’s Queer Story: Greenwich Village- a neighborhood where gay, lesbian, trans, and unhoused folks flocked to after the first world war. Because of the lingering effects of the prohibition era, the mob ran most of the underground joints and speakeasies. This was very good for Queer folks because drinking and “so-called” immoral activities, like essing D,  finger banging, and looking better than you in some fabulous evening wear, found a natural home underground. There, in The Village, the classic New York Queer subculture flourished for two decades.

The 50s brought McCarthyism and social repression, which only helped attract Beat poets, artists, and radical people to the area- expanding the community. By the early 60s Mayor Robert F. Wagoner Jr, felt the urge (probably stemming from his unmet needs of sucking dick) to purge NYC of all gay bars in anticipation for the 1964 World’s Fair. This lead to police entrapment of gay men and gender/clothing policing of trans people.

The Stonewall Inn was owned by the Genovese Crime family, who had invested a whopping $3,500 to convert it from a hetero-night club to a bar where Latinx and Black drag queens, semi-queens, and street kids would spend time. It had no liquor license, so the mob paid off the cops weekly. Reportedly, the bar had no running water, overflowing toilets, and filthy glasses. But, it was the place where Queens, Kings, so-called “crossdressers”, and Queer street kids could congregate indoors and dance. There were two dancefloors and the music of Motown were the jams you would hear there.

Police raids were frequent at the bars of The Village, so there was a system in place to inform bar patrons of police presence. In the case of cops, the black lights would shut off and white lights would flicker. This indicated that folks should stop dancing and touching each other and play it cool.

According to Miss Major, a life-long trans activist and original Stonewall Girl, the patronage was mostly Black and Latinx trans folks and street kids. She also claims that gay men would rarely visit the bar. A fact corroborated with by Titus Montlavo, a former semi-queen who spent time at Stonewall when they were 16. Montlavo told Out Magazine: “At least 70%. The Spanish group was the Delightful Ladies. The black group was the Blackwell...The majority of people at Stonewall were either drag queens or gay men of color. You could never go to Julius [a nearby bar] unless you were extremely conservative and well dressed. We were never allowed there.”

According to the whitewashed, gay dominant narrative, you will find across all forms of historic media, Stonewall was “an even mix of GAY and lesbian, white, black, and hispanic people.” Remember Compton’s? Gay folks routinely rejected trans-women, drag queens and kings. This was no different in New York. There were gay bars around, but The Stonewall Inn was where the Queens were.

It is recorded that on June 28th, at 1:20 am four undercover police, two regular pigs, Deputy inspector Seymor Pine and detective Charles Smythe entered Stonewall and declared “Police we’re taking the place!” A handful of other mob-owned queer bars had been shut down in The Village that summer- they thought that night would be like the rest. They shoulda stayed home and watched Johnny Carson.

The cops worked the the routine, they tried to shut down Stonewall like they had the other bars- by forcing people to prove their genders, taking ID’s, and arresting what would be 13 people.

The actual riot began all thanks to a mixture of the rage of Queens and the resistance of Storme’ Delarverie, Black, stone butch stud, talented, drag king.

As the cops tried to arrest Storme’, they resisted. Onlookers said they saw a “stone butch” aggressively wrestlingt he cops back and forth all the way to the wagon. When they were beaten over the head by an officer and stuffed into the paddy wagon with three Queens, Storme’ cried out to all who could hear, “ WHY DON’T YOU GUYS DO SOMETHING?!” At this point the onlooking gay folks from the gaybars and Village were yelling to the cops, “Let them go!” and “pigs” and faggot cops”. For the folks gathered outside: when Storme’ cried out, people fought back.

Inside of the bar, according to Titus Montalvo, “When the fight started in that corner of the club—at the end of the bar—one very tall Spanish queen named Joey and a couple of black drag queens were at the corner at the time.” Other testimonies, including that of Sylvia Rivera, saw Marsha P. (Pay it no mind) Johnson throw a the first shot glass. It sounds like many folks started fighting back around the same time, different patrons saw different folks, all Latinx and Black, initiate the riot. This cannot be forgotten.

This explosion brought the gay onlookers into the riots. They saw the first wave of protest explode from the Queens, Storme’, and street kids- they saw how the outcasts of the world of “homosexuals” fought back. This was a moment of experiential solidarity.

Cops and a couple of reporters were barricaded in the bar, as protester rioted outside. Bricks wear hurled, coins, dog shit, high heels, and beer bottles. The outraged Queers tried to overturn cop cars and the paddy wagon and pull a parking meter out of it’s post to be used as a battering ram to get at the folks locked inside. They set fire to the bar with the cops and reporters inside. Gay men, who generally loathed the Queens, fought for and with the them on this night. Rallying against the cops who oppressed them all. It is reported that the cops were outnumbered by 500-600 people. Sylvia Rivera, the godmother of Queens and unhoused trans youth, said “It was the greatest moment of my life”.

Famously, the Queens and kids did their can-can “We are the Stonewall Girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear no underwear, we show our pubic hair!” right around the same time the Tactical Patrol Force showed up. They used their force to try and subdue the crowd. Many people were beaten with night-sticks and knocked out cold. By 4:00 the riot had died down and folks sat in the electric air of change along Christopher street.

That same electricity kept its charge the following night, with tags of “Gay Power” and “Drag Power” scrawled all over the charred front of the Stonewall Inn. That night more people joined, tourists and folks who weren’t even Queer, just those who wanted to fight the cops. It was remarked that the next night there was a visible insurgence of Queer PDA, like never before seen. On this night - thousands showed up. This was the night people got buck wild. Saint Sylvia saw Saint Marsha climb a lamp post and drop a bag of heavy object on the windshield of a car- smashing it. The Queen of Queens.

The riot continued through the night until the TPF showed up again. But the damage had been done, the big gay cat was out of the big gay bag and would never be pushed back in again.

The following year was the first Pride event: The Christopher Street Day Parade and Festival.

During the following year, an activist movement co-created by Saint Sylvia and Saint Marsha, Michael Brown of the Mattachine Society, Dick Lietch, Martha Shelley, Lois Hart, Bob Martin, Marty Robinson, Karla Jay, and Bob Kohler, the Gay Liberation Front was founded. Brown, authored a pamphlet called “The Hairpin Drop Heard Around the World”, that allowed the Mattachine society to capitalize off of the momentum of the riots.

The GLF organized throughout 1970 and born from it were various caucuses,the Gay Activist Alliance, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, and Lesbian Liberation Committee (among many other committees formed for Gay Liberation). The GAA, while being initially organized by gay men and women and trans folks, Queens, began to adopt the respectability politics that characterized the ousting of Sylvia, Marsh, Miss Major, and other Queens/crossdressers, sexworkers, and street kids- the very same to instigated the riots that prompted liberation in the first place.

In fact, these sensible gays worked very hard to exclude transwomen from the movement in subsequent Pride events years after the riots. According to Miss Major, “The sad thing about all of that was that the gay and lesbian community took that away from us and just completely white-washed us into the background as if we didn’t exist and weren’t there. They even claimed it was their bar, when you would rarely even see gay people there. “

What strikes me is a mixture of intersecting realities and narratives actually did bring the LGBT community together- eventually adding the Q- the reclamation piece. Gays rejected trans-people. White people reject Black and Brown people. So the story goes. Transfolks, we were’t the same as them, we made things unsafe for them because we can’t so easily pass in the world. Rejecting us was a multi-headed beast: self-preservation, misogyny, phobia of sexualities that might not be gay, and racism. The rage, that night, they came from Black and Brown Queens, shook something in the white gay community. They were compelled to implore the cops to let the queens and kings go. They jumped into the fight in the following nights.

Those gay people NEEDED the spark. I see it as a venn diagram: Queens who were Black or Brown were not permitted by society to have gainful employment or living accommodations, ever; gay men and women, particularly white and passing folks, could be employed and have housing- until the FBI lists publicly took those privileges away. Class and gender privilege divided these groups, until the laws pushed them together. That night of Stonewall, was the venn diagram of rage and disgust. It did not equalize us, it did not make the Queens acceptable to the gays overnight. It was simply a moment of overlapping rage, a moment where gay people could see their struggle in the people that they looked down upon.

The gays needed change from the police harassment just as much as the Queens, even if they couldn’t rise up until that night. Yes, they took over the story and in many ways historically own it. Yes, they took up space in the parades and festivals to come. Yes, they rewrote it to look more gay and less transgender; more white and less Black and Brown. Yes, it is hurtful, wrong, and super fucked up; it is the effects of colonization, the re-mix. It is yet another example of how the labor of Black and Brown folks has changed the world as we know it. And the disease of white toxic masculinity needs to hold credit.

This is where another crux exists. When it opened up everything for the gay and white folks, they tried to keep it. Consequentially, year after year, this pulled more gay and lesbian people into a place of personal pride. I can’t help but think about how this impacts the spectrum of the LGBTQIA community today? I can also see that it was a combination of the spark and the bullshit, that slowly expanded solidarity to the extent of having a larger community that refers to itself as LGBTQIA.

Sylvia: “I may be… You all better quiet down. I’ve been trying to get up here all day for your gay brothers and your gay sisters in jail that write me every motherfucking week and ask for your help, and you all don’t do a goddamn thing for them. Have you ever been beaten up and raped in jail? Now think about it. They’ve been beaten up and raped after they’ve had to spend much of their money in jail to get their self home and to try to get their sex changes. The women have tried to fight for their sex changes or to become women of the Women’s Liberation and they write STAR, not to the women’s groups, they do not write to men, they write STAR because we’re trying to do something for them. I have been to jail. I have been raped, and beaten. Many times. By men, heterosexual men that do not belong in the homosexual shelter. But, do you do anything for me? No. You tell me to go and hide my tail between my legs. I will not put up with this shit. I have been beaten. I have had my nose broken. I have been thrown in jail. I have lost my job. I have lost my apartment for gay liberation and you all treat me this way? What the fuck’s wrong with you all? Think about that! I do not believe in a revolution, but you all do. I believe in the Gay Power. I believe in us getting our rights, or else I would not be out there fighting for our rights. That’s all I wanted to say to you people. If you all want to know about the people in jail – and do not forget Bambi L’Amour, Andorra Marks, Kenny Messner, and other gay people in jail – come and see the people at STAR House on Twelfth Street on 640 East Twelfth Street between B and C apartment 14. The people are trying to do something for all of us, and not men and women that belong to a white, middle-class white club. And that’s what you all belong to! Revolution now! Gimme a ‘G’! Gimme an ‘A’! Gimme a ‘Y’! Gimme a ‘P’! Gimme an ‘O’! Gimme a ‘W’! Gimme an ‘E! Gimme an ‘R’! huh— Gay power. Louder! Gay Power!”

That was a speech made by Saint Sylvia at 1973 NYC pride, where she and Marsha were actively pushed out. Gay culture assimilation, “respectability politics” always pushing back. She enters the stage to a chorus of boos, allegedly after a gay male favorite: Better Midler left the stage.

The same people her labor liberated were the same who booed her and didn’t want to hear her speak. Sylvia not only worked for all Gay Liberation, she actively worked to have inclusion for trans and gender non-conforming people in the world of Gay Liberation. It was her labor that brought the T into the alphabet soup.

1973 was also the year the gays tried to ban Marsha from riding in the Stonewall Car. So what did she and Sylvia do? They went ahead of the opening banner and lead the entire parade. Which put pressure on the NYC gay march to allow transvestites and trans folks in the parade.

It’s truly disgusting to see how the story was white washed and rewritten, but I want to shift focus from that narrative and to how the entire story is about the power and strength of transwomen of color.

Once Upon a time, Black and Latinx Queens and Kings changed everything, for everyone, forever; they created the original festivities, Pride festivals and parades now attract and include more folks than ever. And during the month of June, people rejoice in who they are and how they love and how good we all look! More people are listening to the whole narrative and questioning the story, hungry for truth. And it isn’t over.

The story is complicated, gay cisgender men, especially white men, do get massive privilege in comparison to trans women of color. There is still trans-misogyny in the gay community. Old issues have transformed, yet persisted, over time, and it is still true that: trans women of color are fighting and creating so much for themselves, and all of us, while still being targeted by violence and murdered by hateful ignorance. This story is exalted by  their strength and power; it wouldn’t be a Queerstory that changed the world without all of its parts.

Musical Break: Dame Shirley Bassey- My Life

Dialogue with Colin 

#transcript #stonewallriots #transgender #queen #sylvia rivera #marsha p johnson #dame shirley bassey #queer #queerstorypodcast #lgbtq #lgbtqia #BIPOC #QTPOC

[gishwheshistorian]

2017 Website FAQ (Registration)

What is gishwhes?

g.i.s.h.w.h.e.s. (which stands for the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen) is a 7-time Guinness World Record breaking scavenger hunt hosted by Misha Collins that you can compete in from anywhere in the world (even from your own home!).

Thousands of participants from more than 100 countries build their own teams with friends or are placed on 15-person teams (of new friends!) and for one week, through laughter, sweat and tears (of joy of course), they acquire Items on a fun, inspiring and sometimes jaw-dropping scavenger hunt list. The team that scavenges the most items with the highest quality of submissions joins Misha Collins on an all-expenses paid trip to an exotic locale. All the other teams walk away with a heightened perspective on their capabilities, and memories of an amazing week. Prior Winners journeyed to Rome, a haunted castle in Scotland, an island off the coast of British Columbia, and a pirate ship in Croatia. This year the Winning Team will be joining Misha Collins in Hawaii for stars, surf and space adventures! (we’re not sure what this is, but pictures will be posted!).

So what exactly is it?

It’s basically a week-long scavenger hunt where we present Hunters from all over the planet a list of fun, wild, amazing and kind tasks to create or accomplish. You can complete many of these tasks at home or you can go out into the world  to complete them – it’s up to you!

But you’re not completing them alone! You will be part of a team of 15 people. During registration, you can either invite friends to build a team or we can join you into an amazing team of other individuals – most of our registrants choose this route to make new global friends.

When we post the list on August 5th, your team would divvy up and accomplish these tasks (we call them “items”) over the course of 1 week. They include making incredible crazy art, performing crazy acts, and partaking in heart-warming community service projects. Once you complete a task you either photograph or video it (we tell you which on the item list) and upload a link to it on our site. You receive “points” for every item you accomplish. The team with the most points by the end of the week gets to join the Founder of the Hunt, actor Misha Collins, to some exotic location for an all expenses paid trip.

Many of the participants claim the Hunt is a life-changing experience that either pulled them out of their shell and completely changed their lives, or drove them insane… many others say it’s simply a great way to spend a week of their summer (or winter for those Gishers on the other half of the planet).

Whatever the case, come Gish with us!

What’s it like to participate in gishwhes?

All you need is a camera (mobile phone will do!), access to the Internet, and the desire to be part of an amazing global community. As part of a global team of 15 players – you can form a team on your own with friends (and you don’t need 14 other friends – you can form a partial team and we’ll build out the rest of your team with other players), or, if you want to make new friends, we can group you in an amazing team (if you don’t want to form a team yourself) at the end of registration.

On August 5th, we will post a crazy, wild and kind task list of things for everyone to do. There are some items that you need to find, and others that you must create. Accordingly, a team can be comprised of individuals who love to get out there and mix it up in the world as well as those that are more comfortable in their own house “creating items”.  You will for sure gain new friends (online and offline), become more creative, more outgoing, and likely never look at food the same way again. And through our kindness items, you also will do some pretty great things for yourself and your community.

You then work with your team and divvy up the item list based on what each of you want to do. Then you go do it and then upload the results (images or videos) on our website for points. After the Hunt is over, our judges and Misha go through all of the submissions and add bonus points (for extra awesome items) and sometimes deduct points (for items where individuals may have cheated). Misha then appoints and anoints the winning team and takes them somewhere spectacular and exotic for an all-expenses paid trip. Past trips have been to a haunted castle in Scotland, Rome, and a pirate ship in Croatia. This year the Winning Team will be joining Misha Collins in Hawaii for stars, surf and space adventures!

I want to join! How do I do that?

If you’ve never participated in gishwhes before, go to Register and you’re on your way! If you have participated since 2013, sign in and register again for this year’s hunt.

Do I need a team to do gishwhes?

Nope! Many of our participants join as individuals and then we form them into teams. People join gishwhes for the game, but also for the social aspect – everyone makes new friends.

Here’s how it works: when you join as an individual you can then either invite your friends to join you on a team, or you can wait until registration closes and we can join you onto a team of amazing global hunters that will instantly become your new best friends, leaving all of your other so-called friends in the dust.

If you want to build your own team, you don’t need to find 14 other friends if you don’t want to. You can form a partial team (with as many friends as you can convince to join) and then we will fill it out with other team members at the end of registration.

How can I make sure my friend and I are on the same team?

You’ll have to create a team and have your friend join (it’s okay if you’re just a team of two!), or you can both join someone else’s team together.

What if I don’t have 15 people on my team?

Not a problem at all! If you create a team with fewer than 15 members, no worries! We will add the best people to your team after registration closes. So if you only have 3 friends that you’ve invited and who have joined, we’ll add 11 new friends after registration closes.

Can we merge two existing teams?

Sure! All members of one team must resign and join the other team before registration ends. (There’s a resign link at the bottom of your team page.)

Do all of my team members have to be in one location?

Nope, we’re all about being international at gishwhes. In fact all of our winning teams so far have been made up of members from different countries. You can scavenge harder when you’re working with different time zones.

That being said, many teams (runner-ups and otherwise) have been comprised of friends in the same locale that want to spend a week together doing fun, meaningful and wild things.

You can also use friends that aren’t registered to help you. Many members are part of an international team but invite friends (who don’t want to participate in the full hunt) to help them with certain items.

It’s all up to you!

Is the registration fee per person or per team?

Each person must pay the registration fee (or receive a paid invitation or gisholarship) separately and join the team.

Is there an age limit?

For liability issues we’ve been told we can only allow individuals that are 14 years or older to officially register and participate in the Hunt. This doesn’t mean your children can’t help you with items if you wish – they just couldn’t go on our grand prize trip if they won. Our experience is that whole families join in on the fun and mayhem. Please see our Rules and Regulations for full details on age restrictions as minor consents is required in some cases and some ages cannot go on the Grand Prize trip without a parent or guardian in attendance.

Can I upgrade my registration tier later, and how long do I have to do that?

Yes! You can upgrade at any time (until you can’t) and pay the difference between the levels. Gishbot usually closes down the registration tier upgrade functionality shortly after the end of the Hunt. Misha’s advisor (a.k.a. “Babysitter”) Miss Jean Louis makes the choice on the final date.

When will I receive the items I paid for during registration?

We typically send out these items with the shwag shwop items, around November.

Can I submit an item idea/suggestion for the Hunt?

We’ll ask for item ideas on social media close to next year’s hunt start date, so please hang on to them until then!

Can I volunteer for gishwhes?

Thank you for wanting to! When we need volunteers we’ll recruit on our Facebook and Twitter accounts, so keep an eye on those. At some point, after yesterday, information will also be forthcoming about how to join FEGVEP, our First Ever gishwhes Volunteer Extraordinaire Program.

GISHPOINTS

What are GISHPOINTS?

GISHPOINTS are explained at this page!

I should have received some GISHPOINTS but I don’t see them?

We will award GISHPOINTS at a later date. Much like deserts, they’ll be worth the wait. (And yes, we do mean deserts; the kind with sand and camels.)

TECHNICAL ISSUES

The site won’t let me login!

Please be sure you’re using your username, not your email address. If you can’t remember your username, send yourself a password reset email; it’ll contain your username as well.

I’m trying to pay by credit/debit card but it keeps telling me [insert weird error].

Sorry about the weird error! You can try PayPal; no need to have an account with them as they also process credit and debit cards.

The Gishwhes Historian is a project to archive Gishwhes-related information including emails, hunt updates, timelines, and more.  

You can find more FAQs from past hunts here.

The Gishwhes Historian is a project to archive Gishwhes-related information including emails, hunt updates, timelines, and more.  

#gishwhes #gishwhes 2017 #faq #faq 2017 #website content #website content 2017 #registration #registration 2017 #prehunt #prehunt 2017

[thelgbtarchives]

Rosie the LGBT Riveter

Mathew Scott

Newsweek Global, 6/20/2014, Vol. 162 Issue 24

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/06/20/rosie-lgbt-riveter-254508.html

This article discusses LGBT people in the United States during WWII, specifically lesbians and woman-loving women in the women’s workforce and gay men/men-loving men in the military, with some mentions of gender identity. While it is not written in first person or directly by an LGBT+ person, it speaks to and has interviews from LGBT+ people.

Bev Hickok remembers the deafening noise, the ceaseless mechanical hammer blows of women riveting airplanes together. She remembers how everyone smoked on breaks and that all the women wore pants. But mostly she remembers the friends, the women who invited her to sit with them at lunch her first day on the assembly line at Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica, California, in 1942.

"Evidently they took one look at me and said, 'There's another one,'" says Hickok, now 94. They apparently recognized her as one of their own -- a lesbian.

World War II has long been viewed by historians as an important moment in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history in America. During the war years, millions of young men left their homes and small towns for the military, living in a same-sex environment where they were exposed to a greater variety and volume of people than they had previously known. Women also left their homes, to work in factories and live in same-sex settings under similar conditions. Some homosexuals were not necessarily declaring they were gay or lesbian, says John D'Emilio, a history and gender and women's studies professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "But it creates a space where it's safer and easier to find other people like you and in which there's also -- both in military and homefront -- more tolerance, because it's the war and we're all working together."

It was a watershed moment in LGBT history, but public historian Donna Graves says most people and places that talk about World War II do not acknowledge it. "There's a national D-Day museum in New Orleans -- they don't touch this," she says.

Since the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park was established in Richmond, California, earlier this century, Graves has been pushing for the inclusion of LGBT stories. In March the park finally announced a campaign to collect some of those stories for a 2015 traveling exhibit. While recent decades have seen the inclusion of LGBT history in specialized courses and venues, what the Rosie the Riveter park is doing is "pioneering" says Graves, the project's lead historian and an exhibit consultant. "It's one thing for a local entity to document their history, and it's another when a federal agency decides this is really an important story to tell."

Both D'Emilio and Graves view the Rosie LGBT campaign as part of a recent trend within the federal government to openly recognize LGBT people. This can be seen in attempts by the National Historic Landmarks Program and the National Register of Historic Places to acknowledge buildings and landmarks significant to LGBT history. Two cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles, are conducting studies to document such places of historic importance.

That much of this effort is happening in San Francisco -- long a gay mecca -- is not surprising. The Rosie the Riveter park, located across the bay in Richmond, was founded on the idea that the stories of American civilians on the World War II homefront are complex. From the beginning, a variety of stories have been included, not all of them happy ones: Japanese internment, African-American segregation and Native American hardship. "We want to explode the myth that it's just the white middle-class woman suddenly taking a job in the factory, that Rosie was so much more," says Elizabeth Tucker, lead park ranger at the Rosie the Riveter park.

Tucker, 47, who has long been interested in the issue, only recently discovered that not a single LGBT story was in the Rosie the Riveter collection. Author Therese Ambrosi Smith found this absence a "glaring omission" and was instrumental in helping launch the LGBT campaign. Smith is donating the proceeds from her novel Wax, which tells the story of lesbian characters in the Richmond shipyards, and $1,000 toward an LGBT exhibit. More money poured into the Rosie the Riveter Trust, the nonprofit that supports the park, and the future exhibit was announced. In acknowledgement of the severe prejudice members of the LGBT community faced during World War II, an anonymous tip line was established.

Bev Hickok's friends made the first call, nominating her.

Arrested for Touching

Hickok was an unlikely "Rosie," a woman working for the war effort. Her mother dressed her in white dresses and gloves, and she belonged to a sorority at the University of California, Berkeley. The people she knew then didn't work in factories. They attended dances where they were expected to find suitable husbands, a ritual Hickok detested so much she paid a fine to her sorority to get out of them.

It was at Berkeley that Hickok first started to recognize that she was more interested in women than men. And it was at Douglas Aircraft that she admitted to herself she was a lesbian.

She initially became a Rosie because it was a way to stay on her own after she finished graduate school in Los Angeles. Her parents weren't pleased, but war work was an acceptable reason for her not to return home. She did the job for two years, in part because it was a world in which gender roles were more flexible. For the first time in her life, she was encouraged to wear pants. She met her first gay couple. She lived with a girlfriend.

But the openness was limited; she had to remain guarded in the outside world. "I found that I had to be secret," says Hickok, a thoughtful woman with a sharp wit. "It was exciting in a way -- this was a secret society."

She isn't sure what would have happened had she been discovered, but she believes the punishment would have been severe, even prison. Back then, you could be arrested for wearing clothing of "the opposite gender," Graves says. You could also be arrested if you were in a bar and dancing or even touching someone of the same sex and police deemed it a homosexual encounter. "People really were living in fear of losing their jobs, their housing -- in the case of someone in military service, of being dishonorably discharged -- and even threats of physical violence," Graves says.

While the abundance of women makes the lesbian tales the easiest to obtain, the LGBT project is also attempting to tell the stories of bisexual, transgender and gay civilians serving on the homefront. Selwyn Jones discovered the danger of being openly gay early on. The war brought Jones, a farm boy from Texas, to Tampa, Florida, where he served as a court reporter on a case that involved the dishonorable discharge of a gay man. Although he was not a civilian at the time, he shared his wartime story with the exhibit because it took place in the U.S. and not overseas. "It certainly was an eye-opener," says Jones, a small bundle of energy whose jeans are held up by black-and-white-checkered suspenders.

A night owl who rarely schedules anything before noon, Jones has lived in San Francisco for decades. At "92 and a half," he has experienced the swing of gay history, ranging from the activist years of San Francisco politician Harvey Milk in the 1970s to the dark years of the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s (a bedroom photo commemorates a lover who died of complications from AIDS). For Jones the story begins during World War II while he was still in the U.S. before shipping overseas. It was then that he heard the word homosexual for the first time. "I was already behaving like one, but I just didn't have that word for it yet," he says. "Being a farm boy from East Texas, I had never read anything."

He was in his early 20 s then, and although he would soon be sent overseas to fight, he was discovering the possibilities, and dangers, of being a gay man in America. After the war, he looked up the man who had been discharged and went to visit him. "I still didn't know many gay men, and I wanted to find out from him what it was all about."

The man took Jones to a bar frequented by both gay and straight men. It was the first time Jones had been to such a place, and the first time he had socialized publicly with an openly gay man.

The Women's Land Army was also a place to discover gay life. The WWII Home Front Oral History Project has collected stories in collaboration with the Rosie the Riveter park. In his story, Jeffrey Dickemann -- known then as Mildred -- describes several encounters with lesbians while spending a summer helping on farms. While one retelling includes the dismissal of a woman known to be a lesbian, others chronicle the relative openness with which some women engaged in same-sex relationships. For Dickemann, as for Hickok and Jones, the period served as an introduction to gay life.

And yet it was not until late in life that Jones and Hickok were able to be completely open about their sexuality, and Dickemann was ready to make the transition to living as a man. Neither Jones nor Hickok ever told their parents about their sexual orientation, and Hickok worried that her employers at the University of California, Berkeley, where she worked as a librarian, would fire her if they found out. Despite the fears and prejudices they once lived with, both believe society is now ready to hear their stories.

In April, at the LGBT campaign kickoff event in Rossmoor, a senior community in Walnut Creek, California, Hickok shared her story. Around 60 people attended, only a handful as old as Hickok, who has mobility difficulties but remains clear-headed and well dressed.

Her sharp wit is also still in place. When talking recently about a gay hairdresser she spent time with while working as a Rosie, she tugged a strand of her short white hair and said, "I could use him now." The hairdresser couldn't understand how Hickok could endure the noisy environment of the aircraft company. But for Hickok it was far better than when she was surrounded by sorority sisters interested only in "dating and marrying a rich man."

Hickok did eventually marry. In 2008, after the California Supreme Court ruled that a law excluding same-sex couples from marriage was unconstitutional -- and before the passage of Proposition 8, which overturned the ruling -- she married her partner, Doreen S. Brand. Hickok has outlived Brand and watched as Americans first fought against and now seem to be largely in favor of same-sex marriages.

In 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Prop 8's defenders, once again making it legal for same-sex partners to marry in California. The changes in LGBT rights have been monumental, but Hickok continues to take them in stride, she says, "walking along with it."

#World War II #wwII #u.s history #lgbt history #lgbtq+ history #lesbians #gay men #transgender people #history #thelgbtarchives #lgbtpride #lgbt community

[theconservativebrief]

I would like to dedicate this piece to the hero who untied Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s $40 million dollar yacht from its mooring two weeks ago. I’d love it if someone could also untie her 22,000 square foot nautical-themed summer mansion, located in Holland, Michigan, as well, even though it might take a few more years of climate change before it can float away into the depths.

My mission for the past three years as the creator of the architectural humor blog McMansion Hell has been to unpack what makes mansions like DeVos’s so terrible, from both an architecture and social standpoint. It’s bad enough that we have a president who oversaw a massive redistribution of wealth toward the already wealthy through tax breaks. What’s worse is that obscenely wealthy people like him waste all their money building pseudo-castles and other eclectic tragedies all while wagging their finger at the rest of us telling us to eat cake.

Trump official and fellow rich person Betsy DeVos just rolled back Obama administration loan forgiveness rules for students defrauded by for-profit colleges. It’s unsurprising that she doesn’t want to forgive the student loan debts of those defrauded by for-profit colleges considering that she got her net worth of more than $1 billion from her husband’s company, multi-level marketing giant, Amway, is often described as a cult. Meanwhile, her brother Erik Prince owns the Blackwater firm which essentially sells mercenaries. As we can see, we are not dealing with nice people.

As someone who personally owes tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, getting paid to make fun of DeVos’s tacky seaside decor is one of few ways to both feed myself and make myself feel better.

Kate Wagner/Advance Media/Barcroft Images

Betsy’s house is, in general a mess. The home attempts to play on the historical American school of architecture known as the shingle style. This style, often seen by historians as a combination of the emerging Arts and Crafts movement and 19th-century eclecticism is known for its extensive use of shingles as a building material and its multi-massed (massing is a fancy word for a buildings’ three-dimensional forms) architectural complexity. Betsy likely went with this style because it is very popular in New England and in coastal enclaves of the rich and famous in general.

Kate Wagner / Advance Media / Barcroft Images

Even though Betsy is riffing on the shingle style, there is a difference between architectural complexity and a mess, just as there is a difference between a masterful use of vocabulary and replacing every word in a sentence with the longest synonym you can find in the thesaurus.

Betsy’s house looks like a compound of multiple unfinished parts, and nothing about its hulking facade really gels. This is partially because it has no fewer than 13 different window styles — yes, I counted them — and because each of the wings of the house try (perhaps intentionally) to be very visually different from one another.

Kate Wagner/Pricey Pads

For example, why is there a massive turret tacked on as if they couldn’t quite commit to a separate lighthouse? The house’s roofline somehow includes three separate roof types (clipped gable, dutch gable, and hipped)? Why are some columns stone and others wood? Why do none of the doors seem to be the front door? (Is there even a front door?) It’s a classic case of too many cooks in the kitchen, and none of those cooks are good at their job.

I don’t know how much this house cost, but according to the topical website PriceyPads.com, the house has three bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, three kitchens, eight dishwashers, 13 porches, and an elevator. Something about that ratio of bedrooms to dishwashers seems off to me, but what would I, a mere wretch, too dumb and poor to avoid being exploited by the predatory cost of higher education, know?

Kate Wagner/Pricey Pads

While the repairs are underway on one of her 10 boats, maybe poor Betsy can spare some of her precious time (otherwise spent being the villain of a Charles Dickens novel) reading essays like M.H. Miller’s in The Baffler, which describes in detail the toll student loan debt repayment takes on working families. Or she could take a gander at a recent Time article about how an entire generation of people have negative wealth.

Kate Wagner/Pricey Pads

In America, the rich get richer, and the poor have to beg the federal government to forgive the debts they owe to predatory for-profit colleges run by the rich who keep on getting richer. What do the rich do with all their money? Build horrific monstrosities with eight dishwashers and dismantle the public school system.

Architecture is never a vacuum. This house sucks, but like all buildings, it is a reflection of both the people and the broader culture that make building it both possible and desirable. Those, too, irrefutably suck.

Kate Wagner is the creator of the viral blog McMansion Hell and a freelance design writer. Kate is $42,000 in student loan debt for her MA in architectural acoustics from Johns Hopkins University.

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Original Source -> Betsy DeVos’s summer mansion, explained by the blogger behind McMansion Hell

via The Conservative Brief

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