#when he is part of many groups ostracised in any community | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dawningfairytale · 1 year

Text

i'm not active in the heartstopper fandom but i just heard the news about how kit connor was forced to come out and i am absolutely disappointed and disgusted.

i'm assuming that the people reading this post agree with me that a person cannot queerbait. queerbaiting, to my knowledge, is a media corporation promising queer representation (often manifested as a kiss and/or relationship, possibly a coming out scene) by leaving hints but never delivering. for example, bbc sherlock and supernatural were classic cases of queerbaiting, building up pairings to be something but one never coming to fruition and the other immediately giving into bury your gays in the third to last episode.

a person cannot queerbait. some people claim that taylor swift queerbaits, at worst she is participating in some erasure of queer history (eg the colour lavender), but she is not promising anyone of her sexuality, currently presenting as straight. kit connor playing a bisexual character was not queerbaiting. people play characters with a different sexuality to their own all the time (i do it in my daily life). if we, as the council of the queers, claim that straight people cannot play gay characters, or are queerbaiting us if they do so, then we are implying that we can only play roles matching to our own identities.

i am aware that there is erasure present in the media, but i believe that sexuality is an aspect of a character that does not have to be mirrored by the actor. the truth from the story ought to come from the writing and production rooms, sure, or by doing thorough research and hiring sensitivity readers.

kit connor is 18. he should not be harassed for any reason, no one should, and especially not for his sexuality. there are so many reasons someone may not be out. coming out is a journey that can only be defined by the person taking it, as we learnt from heartstopper.

heartstopper and nick's journey is deeply personal to me. that doesn't change based on the sexuality of the actor. i am 17. i am bi. i came out to some of my closest friends while watching heartstopper. they are some of the only people i am out to.

i think that some people, the "chronically online 13 year olds", if you will, don't understand that it is not safe for everyone to be out of the closet, for a variety of reasons. accepting your own sexuality may not be as easy as "oh i want to fuck that person of the same gender as me, turns out i'm queer" and dropping it in conversation to your family. for some people, it's like that, and i'm thankful for them that it is. but there are many reasons someone may not want to come out. they may not be safe to come out in their home. they may fear being ostracised for religious or political reasons, but still desire to be part of that pre-existing community. they may lose their jobs. they may lose relationships. i am a practising christian, in a christian family. they overreacted enough when i joined my school's queer group "as an ally" (which i thought was true at the time), promising that, if i were gay, there would be a far longer conversation. that terrifies me. but i'd like to create sapphic art one day. does my refusal to come out beyond a screen invalidate that?

we don't know what kit connor's conditions were. we don't know what he risked in coming out. we don't know what jobs he may lose, what relationships he may lose, what communities he may lose. it is none of our business. no one owes you their sexuality, regardless of their public position or their relationship to you. my heart goes out to kit connor as he traverses this, and i truly hope he has a strong support system.

13 notes · View notes

chabby4memes · 9 months

Text

So, its like, nearly twelve here, and I've been stuck In a room with my cousin, right? So like, he's been listening to an Andrew Tate thing, and I don't normally take time to debunk arguments, but he says the dumbest shit with the most jackass type of 'intellectual wrapping' I've ever heard in my short ass life.

The way he talks about, well everything, it's disgusting, he tries to say that he thinks women are powerful but then only values their fertility, and the fact that they pick men as sexual partners, he says that it's not their job to be 'emotionally stable' which is actually fuckery.

Any part of the gender spectrum is fucking impulsive, like my dad is a good man, but he's a little impulsive, he makes mistakes. But he's the better parent. My mother is calculated, not particularly impulsive, she makes mistakes, very stable, but she is a shit parent, and awful fucking parent.

Stability, and impulsivity are very different.

He's the loudest shit talker I've ever heard, he uses the loud negative minority of the LGBTQ community, some that are bad, some misguided, and uses their words to articulate an argument based solely in believing in gender roles, he wants a role, he wants everyone do to xxx and xxx so on so forth.

Using an argument like "some gay people are inappropriate to children" when uh yeah also some straight people are inappropriate to kids too- it's like the gender double standard, women get away with sexual assault, but so do men. And I'm putting the rest of this below the cut because it involves my personality experiences.

When I was younger, I was sexually abused for years, by several men, all of which got away with it but one. It's not that there wasn't any evidence against them, but they pleaded towards their luck and position.

So out of what four men, one was put away, for five years, he got put away for the time it took me to graduate secondary school, that's how fucking bankrupt the system is.

So. What that means is, yes while some people do get away with crimes more than others, be it due to sexuality, gender or even their fucking class, those people tend to get away with more, they do, but still- to villanise a large group of people based on a small group of people who they actually decry and exclude for being immoral too, but not do that to other groups is intellectually dishonest.

And yeah, sometimes certain people get excused of things due to the media and court not wanting to be portrayed a certain sort of way, bit as someone who is black and not straight, I don't condone that shit, and someone needs to say it, everyone who has committed a certain crime, (negating like, self-defence, or actual insanity/crimes of passion, young age in some cases) should get equal sentence, sometimes it does tip towards white men, bit sometimes it tips towards minorities, or women or whatever.

And in both cases it's fucked. The scales of justice shouldn't be tipped for one side, someone's identity shouldn't stop them or condemn them. Using someone's sexuality to say it's sexual deviance is messed up, but so is condemning them on their skin colour, and I'm going to say it, regardless of white or black, and no, you cannot ostracise others for being white because 'their ancestors' That's unfair, racism is simply based on prejudice of others race or ethnicity, by putting into a class system you make it sound as if some people don't get mistreated for their race, and that's wrong.

I have alot of white friends, whatever right? To my family, especially my paternal grandmother, that's wrong, and I should have more black friends. It's to the point where she won't acknowledge my dad's partners properly for having relationships with too many white people which is fucking awful. My dad's current partner is the sweetest woman I've ever met, but she's treated like a ghost for no crime of her own. Even I get treated oddly for not being "black enough".

I know this has spiralled, but to say what it is, all forms of justice and evaluation should be equal, equality comes though a diminshment of focus on the unchanging factors of humans, like race, gender, sexuality, so on so forth, it creates unfair bias.

#vent #rant #tw sex assault #tw rasicm

1 note · View note

coolrobotsupremacist · 3 years

Text

Victurnien expends $19.96 on Morality

Fantine had survived on her wage, working at the Splash of the Sea. Now, with the modest annuity her OnlyFans account brought her, she felt able to breath again. She could never bring herself to enjoy cleaning up changing rooms or fishing the bloated corpses of discarded plasters out of the outside pool but she could bear it happily knowing that she would be able to pay for Cosette's medicine without going hungry herself. As for her second job, or side hustle as she might have called it had she any intimate to confide in, she did not concern herself with what people might think of her if they found out. Why should she? It was for Cosette; that was enough.

Moreover, Fantine had always had an talent for composition and though she had never before turned these talents on herself, she surprised herself by enjoying the process and refused to feel any shame. She was sure that Thomolys had felt no shame when he had exploited her trust in him to gain access to her body likewise she would feel no shame in profiting from her own exploitation of the same. His shadow faded from her life, in bitter increments then all at once. The need to take every shift she could manage had lessened slightly. There was time enough for the little luxuries again and Fantine's beauty regained the polish of care. This little happiness caused even greater envy on the part of her colleagues.

It is to be acknowledge that in this modern age we are oversaturated with gossip, yet our thirst for secrets hasn't waned with the rise of the internet and the startling ease with which we found ourselves able to communicate. That terrible instinct to bring low is inflamed by our engagement in social media. The urge to gossip and then make judgement both amplified and rendered impersonal by the strange double illusion the internet brings; that sensation of simultaneous immediacy and disconnect. This goes some way to explain the avidity with which Fantine was watched. Fantine was known to them but distant, seemingly cold, she was a real to them as a celebrity, that is, something for them to consume first and empathise with as an afterthought.

It was observed that she had a daughter or at least that her lockscreen was a child that bore remarkable resemblance to her, which, to them, was the same thing. Fantine did not consciously decided to keep Cosette a secret nor did it occur to her that anyone might feel the right to know. They assumed her silence meant secrecy. She was constantly messaging some mysterious recipient on her breaks, but her phone rarely rang in answer. On some occasions she became frantic, hunched over her phone typing message after messages till it buzzed with a reply. It was, they whispered, odd. Suspicious.

Fantine, beautiful, could have been accepted but she refused to lean coquettishly into a selfie, claimed to “not believe” in social media and refused even to join their whatsapp group. Her colleagues were happy to believe her arrogant. Hence they became suspicious of this outsider and they longed for their suspicions to be vindicated.

In this matter their patience was eventually rewarded.

By coincidence one day the man who restocked the vending machines in the lobby came in just as Fantine was walking out to start her shift; he started upon seeing her and turned his back, red faced. What could this mean? They were watched for signs of an affair. The suspected paramour remained embarrassed, Fantine oblivious. Even more suspect was that this man, mild old Mr. Porter, would normally drop secrets like his machines dropped cola, clammed up when questioned, when teased. They were not content for it to be something as innocent as infatuation.

The freedom this mystery brought to their speculation satisfied almost everyone. There was but one Employee whose curiosity extended to wanting the, preferably damming, truth. Almost elderly, hunched over the reception desk and watching everyone with quick, accusing eyes was a woman named Victurnien. She had been married once, proving that not all unhappy wives are merry widows. Living for so long under her husbands rule had normalised cruelty; had made injustice seem commonplace. Worse: his brutality had left her pious. There was no pity in her heart for suffering as suffering had become the great glory of her life. She had never faltered in the face of hardship so there was no judgement she felt ill-equipped to make. Why should others stray from righteousness when she had not?

As a younger women she might have been received less favourably but it happened that age had rendered her vicious gossip at worst a irritating quirk, a foible of the elderly. At best it was a tool; her gossip, with its stamp of sexagenarian authority, held universal appeal. At worst – well! How could a little gossip hurt anyone?

Now began her investigation. Aided by her iPhone she took to Facebook, it was the work of a moment to send friend requests out to Porter and then to all of his Facebook friends. It was the work of almost three months for this tactic to bear fruit. Victurnien had managed to become something of a confidant, not to Porter which would have been truly ideal but to his sister. Victurnien was a stalwart Christian ear to many concerns; her dwindling authority at her book club, the terrible self-service machines at the supermarket and Victurnien wouldn't believe the disgusting little App she had discovered on her brothers Phone...

There are very few people who matched the levels of feverish anticipation Victurnien felt as she made her OnlyFans account. Then she began to scroll. After five hours, three false positives and $14.97 in subscriptions, Victurnien was rewarded. It might have been a bitter condolence for Fantine to learn that it took 5 months for Victurnien to realise she had to cancel her subscriptions but Fantine would never find out how her secret had been uncovered.

Victurnien made her report the very next day.

It was agreed to be shocking, shocking! The scandal thrilled through the establishment, shaking everyone except Fantine who was ostracised and Madeline, whose venerated feet trod so high up in the heavens that no one would dare disturb them with such earthly tremors. Snooty, Holier than thou Fantine was a - they all knew what she was. We must admire such insight: for them to know Fantine absolutely without exchanging more than a handful of words with her.

The Splash of the Sea was a family friendly establishment. Little thought was given to how relevant these facts were to each other. Think, they said, of the children. The children, well known consumers of online pornography, were duly thought of. Fantine was by no means irreplaceable and it was not longer... appropriate, for her to work at the Splash of the Sea. They couldn't fire her for having a second job but Fantine was on a zero hour contract so that unpleasantness could be avoided.

Fantine found that her shifts slowly began to go missing. This was their idea of charity; to give Fantine a chance to find more suitable employment. This mercy forced Fantine to take out another loan. Jobs were scarce. Weeks passed in this manner with no change but an increasing desperation on Fantine's part. The supercilious attitude of her colleagues and the fruitless search for employment had taken its toll; when Fantine managed to secure an interview she mumbled and avoided their eyes. At work she pretended calm and looked down her nose at the Gossips. This did not encourage her shift manager give her more hours.

A dismissal would have been a relief; a relief Fantine was denied. She dared not ask for a reference lest they reduced already meagre shifts even further.

She had been given Mr Madeline's number at the start of her employment, along with numbers for all the senior staff, but she didn't dare contact him. What, after all, could she say? He was not obliged to give her work; her suspicions entitled her to nothing. Fantine returned to her bedsit, downhearted, both her rent and her payment for Cosette were due that week; she would not be able to make both.

#brick renouveautions #2021 brick renouveautions #2021brickrenouveautions #les mis #fantine #Madame Victurnien

25 notes · View notes

heaven-in-a-wild-flower · 3 years

Text

How the foxes celebrate pride month!

Nicky of course goes all out and dresses in fancy pride coloured outfits and paints his face and marches in the pride parade (yes, Eric visits so he takes him too). He also has giant pride flags. It feels greatly liberating for him to celebrate something that he's always been ostracised for. At night, he cries when he thinks about the conversion camp and Eric holds him through it and murmurs softly to him.

Renee dyes her hair entirely in pastel rainbow colours and joins Nicky in the pride parade. She loves watching the love and acceptance in all the faces. She smiles and smiles and smiles and even sheds a few tears when she sees some queer kids hugging their parents.

Allison wears pride colours in designer clothes of course and even though she doesn't march in the parade, she donates huge amounts of money to charities for lgbtqiia+. She's not a very emotional person in general, but when she sees all the love in the air, it fills some empty part of her.

Dan and Matt also march in the parade. They're the loud cheering types, and they also make cute posters with slogans like, 'I love you, just the gay you are' and 'Pride, not Prejudice'. They feel great anger when they think about all the injustices that queer people have to face and they're there for anyone to talk to.

Katelyn forces a hesitant Aaron into volunteering with some pride activities they have at school. She is bedecked in so so many pride pins and she pins a few onto Aaron when he isn't looking. Aaron has a complicated understanding of queerness. He'd always been raised to think it's wrong, but when he sees Nicky and Eric and Neil and Andrew he's slowly starting to see that they're not much different than Katelyn and him. Homophobia was taught to him at a young age but he's trying to unlearn it.

Kevin teaches a group of queer kids Exy for one week. He knows that being queer is inconvenient for Exy, knows that they might face some discrimination or backlash but he finally understands that that is a part of their identity. He realises that it's more important for them to be themselves without being afraid of the consequences. He wonders who he'd be if he were so afraid of the Moriyamas that he quit Exy altogether. Honestly, he doesn't want to know.

Neil doesn't like celebrating things for himself but when it comes to other people he'll do anything. So while he knows Andrew would hate to join a loud crowded parade, he knows just what to get him. He buys him a rainbow cake which gets him a dry look from Andrew but it only takes a few hours until there's only crumbs left. And if somehow Neil's lips are smeared with rainbow icing even though he didn't have any cake, well, that's their business isn't it? The thing Neil loves best about the lgbtqiia+ community is that they're family even though they're not blood. He feels almost overwhelmed by how loving and accepting they are, something he never found in his blood family (it reminds him of the foxes). Andrew doesn't think about the queer community much, but when he sees parents supporting their children for being queer, it makes something in his heart clench.

#aftg #aftg headcanon #all for the game #nicky hemmick #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #neil josten #renee walker #allison reynolds #matt boyd #dan wilds #kevin day #eric klose

53 notes · View notes

woman-loving · 3 years

Text

Impacts of Attitudes Toward Bisexuals: Passing, Denial, and Invisibility

Selection from "Inside, Outside, Nowhere: Bisexual Men and Women in the Gay and Lesbian Community," Kirsten McLean, Journal of Bisexuality, 8, 1-2, 2008

Knowledge of the exclusion of bisexual men and women within the gay and lesbian community has a significant impact on bisexual men and women who look to this community for support. Many of the participants in my research were well aware that bisexuality was not seen favorably by some members of the gay and lesbian community, and though they participated in parts of the community, they were well aware that revealing their bisexuality could be a problem in certain spaces. Several participants who participated in the gay and lesbian community acknowledged the difficulties of telling some gay men and lesbians they were bisexual, and said they often hid their bisexuality and let others assume they were lesbian or gay.Barbara (age 54) admitted to letting assumptions that she was a lesbian slide for fear of exclusion: “I wouldn’t dare deny people’s assumptions that I am a lesbian, because I’d be alienated. I just want to blend in.” Fiona (age 26) was more explicit, telling people she was lesbian rather than bisexual: “I say I’m a lesbian, but I’m not really proud of that at all. I feel it’s about how I’m positioning myself at the time, and I’m going there because I like girls, not because I like guys. But it could backfire one day.” Aaron (age 23) preferred the rather ambiguous term of queer in some contexts: “If it’s the campus group, I identify first as queer and second as bisexual. Sometimes people assume I’m gay and it’s not an issue. I don’t correct them anymore, although I used to.”

Several of these participants acknowledged that passing as gay or lesbian compromised their sense of identity as bisexual but felt it was necessary to avoid being ostracised from the gay and lesbian community altogether. Nathan (age 22) expressed this well when he said: “I feel a lot of the time I have to hide my bisexuality to be a part of the community. I guess I’m not really being honest about who I am. I find a lot of gay men are really misogynistic, which makes me uncomfortable—and less likely to come out as bi to them.” Hiding one’s bisexuality when participating in the gay or lesbian communities is nothing new; in their research conducted in the 1970s, Blumstein and Schwartz (1976a, b) found that bisexual men and women often reacted to hostility from the homosexual community by suppressing their bisexuality, or at the very least their interests in the opposite sex. Recent research argues that being aware of negative stereotypes of bisexual people sometimes discouraged bisexual women from self-identifying as bisexual for fear of loss of legitimacy and efficacy, fear of shame, and fear of negative consequences. This in turn sustains the invisibility and “cultural anonymity” of bisexual women (Ault, 1996, p. 318).

Some of the participants in my research preferred to “blend in” with the gay and lesbian community by passing as gay or lesbian, or let assumptions of being gay or lesbian slide without challenging the truthfulness of these assumptions. However, others stated that if they were asked, they would identify themselves as bisexual. For example, one female participant said: “Normally I would let people make their own decisions about me and I wouldn’t hide my male partner, but I wouldn’t volunteer that I have one straight away” (Sharon, age 31). Few of the participants in my research who were involved in the gay and lesbian community openly identified as bisexual within the gay and lesbian community or challenged assumptions that they were gay or lesbian. Instead, maintaining a gay or lesbian persona was seen as necessary to protect oneself from judgement, discrimination,and conflict with others in the gay and lesbian community.

Not being truthful about one’s bisexuality, however, creates significant issues for bisexual men and women. Having different personas, often with conflicting values and ideas, and having to act in different ways in different contexts, does little to help maintain a healthy bisexual identity (McLean,2001). Furthermore, dishonesty or secrecy about “key areas of one’s life create a distance from other people, preventing potentially enriching experiences” (George, 1993, p. 104). This is an issue of some concern in light of recent Australian research by Jorm, Korten, Rodgers, Jacomb, and Christensen (2002) that found that bisexuals overall have a lower level of mental health as compared with homosexuals and heterosexuals.

The researchers inferred that feelings of stigma or experiences of discrimination, which were not measured, may play a part in this.The health effects described above are only one possible consequence of repressing one’s bisexual identity. Israel and Mohr (2004) argued that antibisexual attitudes themselves can have negative impacts on bisexuals:

“Negative attitudes create a context of hostility for bisexual men and women than can affect many areas of their lives. ... Such experiences with negative attitudes may adversely affect mental health and well-being of bisexual individuals. ... Internalization of such negative attitudes by bisexual individuals may create a barrier to developing a positive bisexual identity.” (p. 119)

Research on antibisexual attitudes towards bisexual women argues that these “cast doubt on the existence of authentic bisexual experience and identity by providing alternative explanations for apparent bisexuality” (Rust, 1993, p. 226). These doubts can also be internalised by bisexual men and women via what Weinberg et al. (1994) called “continued uncertainty” that can persist even after accepting that one is bisexual. According to Weinberg et al., this “continued uncertainty” is expressed in the frequent questioning of the validity of one’s bisexual identity and continual doubts about whether one is “really” bisexual. Furthermore, support and understanding are crucial to the development and maintenance of a healthy bisexual identity. Allowing people to assume one is heterosexual, gay, or lesbian rather than bisexual means that one cannot begin to find the support,acceptance, and validation necessary to develop a fully integrated sexual identity. Without this, many bisexual men and women continue to feel uncertain, embarrassed, ashamed, or guilty about their emotional and/or sexual attractions to men and women.

CONCLUSION Although participants in my research were more likely to go to community events and gay and lesbian nightclubs than get involved in gay and lesbian groups, there are also large numbers of gay men and lesbians who do not actively participate in the gay and lesbian community. The reason for such low levels of participation by Australian bisexual men and women in the Australian gay and lesbian community, however, could be attributed to the antibisexual attitudes that were considered, by many participants, to exist in the gay and lesbian community. It could be suggested that participants’ ambivalence towards the gay and lesbian community may have come from a perception that they would be excluded or discriminated against because they were bisexual, not merely because of a lack of interest in participation.

Bisexual men and women are therefore less likely to participate in a space where it is known that others have experienced rejection, or where they envisage they may be unwelcome. When participants did get involved in the gay and lesbian community, their experiences were mixed, and participants held considerable fears and suspicions about the attitudes of members of the Australian gay and lesbian community towards bisexuality as a whole. As a result, few had direct contact with gay men and lesbians in organizational or community group settings with which to experience positive reinforcement or acceptance of their bisexuality.

The belief that bisexuality is not accepted within the Australian gay and lesbian community also explains why many participants in my research preferred to “blend” into the gay and lesbian community; when attending events and festivals, or going out on the gay and lesbian scene, participants were assumed to be lesbian or gay (or sometimes, heterosexual), and few challenged these assumptions. Participants felt that openly identifying as bisexual among gay men and lesbians would lead to them being ostracized, or denied a space in which to express their same-sex desires in a safe and supportive environment. The risk of losing access to that space was seen as far greater than any risks associated with suppressing and hiding their bisexuality. As a consequence, the tendency for bisexual men and women to suppress their identity to fully participate in the gay and lesbian community reinforces the idea that bisexuality does not exist in the first place—therefore confirming the illegitimacy of bisexual identity as a whole. This significantly contributes to the invisibility of bisexuality on the sexual landscape and also has a number of implications, beyond the scope of this article, on the ability for bisexual men and women to activate for greater inclusion within the gay and lesbian community.

Overall, the participants in my research had a complex relationship with the Australian gay and lesbian community. By participating in the gay and lesbian community either by “passing” as gay or lesbian or letting assumptions of homosexuality slide, they were able to gain “insider” status in that community by being seen to identify in the same way as other members of this group. However, a revelation of their bisexuality within this context was seen to put this “insider” status at risk, and therefore participants were often involved in the gay and lesbian community without being completely honest about their bisexuality, as well as other elements of their lives such as their relationships. As a result, participants also played the role of “outsider,” making it difficult for them to feel a real sense of belonging in the gay and lesbian community. The “catch-22” of these tensions is that by believing they would not be fully accepted by the gay and lesbian community, many of the bisexual men and women interviewed were reluctant to participate in this community in the first place, at least on more than a social level, and many harbored rather ambivalent feelings about the gay and lesbian community itself—thus reinforcing their status as “outsiders” to the gay and lesbian community.

#bisexuality #biphobia #australia

35 notes · View notes

freddieofhearts · 3 years

Text

Bye bye, dears (for now!)

I know there have been a lot of rumours and some posts about me leaving, so here I am to set the record straight and say a quick ‘au revoir’. This post is long, and I don’t expect everyone to read the whole thing—if you just want information on how to keep in touch, or about access to my removed fics, scroll to the bottom. ⬇️

Why are you leaving?

Firstly, of course I’m not leaving Freddie. This is just an ongoing hiatus from the social side of fandom, because while I have some incredible friends here, who have done all they can to support me and have made this experience wonderful in lots of ways—it’s also true that the social space has become more and more toxic for me.

I get a wild amount of hate. Despite never having my ask box enabled on here, people create new accounts just to message me and tell me all the problems in this fandom are my fault, that I’m faking being sick, that I should kill myself, that I’m fat, etc. I also very regularly get hateful comments on AO3.

Obviously I realise that I’m not the only one who receives these cruel attacks, but it’s become increasingly hard to handle them—especially as some people (‘real’ accounts, not faceless anons) do continue to blame me for wider problems in the fandom. It makes me feel consistently sad, anxious, and paranoid, so that I can’t focus on anything Queen-related that I enjoy.

More pressingly, it’s affected my mental health, which is—imperfect at the best of times. As I’ve occasionally alluded to in older posts on this blog, I have a history of anorexia, OCD, PTSD, and some other overlapping issues. Most people who know me in the fandom are also aware that I’m ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ to Covid-19, significantly immunocompromised, and have been isolating at home for eleven months.

The combination of all of these things + the constant toxic messages has really been triggering me, and leading to an uptick in disordered behaviours, which my body cannot sustain. Every new instance of hate from an anon—every time there’s another indication of groups in the fandom wanting to ostracise me further—my reaction is deeply self-punitive and unhealthy. Ultimately I need to be out of this environment for, at least, a protracted period. My therapist, my partner and my close friends in the fandom support this decision.

So, what went wrong?

In 2019, I expected to be an absolutely tiny blog in the Queen Tumblr landscape. The fandom was already well-established, and I have never worked to ‘build a following’ on here—I think I’ve linked my own fic a maximum of three or four times!—in fact, more or less the opposite. As I mentioned above: ya girl is nutty as a fruitcake. As a result, I often avoid extremely niche things in daily life which cause severe anxiety for me, Relevant examples here: I never look at my timeline. I never intentionally look at my follower number. Yup, it’s strange, I fully admit it, but it’s best for me to go with these things—usually. In Queen fandom, however, this avoidance both of analytic stats and of most direct engagement led to some problems... My followers grew without me realising, and way more people were reading my blog than I was aware of. I was still in a—“Wow, this fandom is very frustrating, and rife with ableism, racism, etc., so how do we fix this???”—mindset, and I wanted to share my opinions, sure! but I also thought I was sharing them with 15-20 like-minded people.

Now, intent is not impact, and I recognise that I was brusque, didn’t phrase things particularly sensitively, and absolutely did hurt some people by criticising the fandom so freely. I still regret this—and I regret just as much the fact that some assholes have used my criticising the fandom on my own blog as implicit justification for attacking authors. I have said on here many times that I don’t condone that behaviour—but I also think there’s some truth in the presumption that these anonymous malcontents felt my critiques somehow ‘permitted’ them to engage in abuse. For the first few months, though, I genuinely had no idea there was a link at all—and so I was initially slow to condemn this abusive behaviour in public, because I was taking it for granted all authors agreed it was shitty. It took someone directly telling me (shoutout to @a-froger-epic) that people had identified a connection between my posts and the anons, before everything fell into place.

I would like to offer my apologies to the fandom at large for not being more quick on the uptake about this, because I feel that had I realised sooner that these people were taking ‘inspiration’ in some way from me, it might have been easier to put a stop to it. It does seem that there is still a lot of confusion about whether I support them and which of their views I agree with. Let’s be 100% clear on this: I do not support the anonymous commenters on AO3. At times there is some, limited overlap between parts of their views and parts of mine, but even that is less than you may think—I often see anonymous comments from so-called ‘Freddie fans’ that I substantially disagree with.

Perhaps even more importantly: I do not support anyone who sends anonymous hate on Tumblr.

What’s all this about ‘overlap’ with the anons?

Let’s do a mini-summary of the myths vs. the truth. There are views I hold which are genuinely unpopular in the fandom—but which I own up to completely, and have never tried to hide in any way. I’ve never needed to use anonymous to share my opinions because I’m completely open about them! What people who don’t know me tend to have ‘heard’ about me, though, is usually a drastic distortion of my real opinions.

What people think I think:

- Freddie should never top.

- It’s okay to send anon hate if someone writes Freddie ‘wrong’.

- It’s more important to correct ‘wrong’ portrayals than to respect other writers.

- It’s inherently wrong to be more interested in band pairings than canon pairings.

- Freddie should be overtly written as a r*pe survivor/victim (and not doing this is wrong).

- Freddie should be overtly written as having an eating disorder (and not doing this is wrong).

- Kink fics are wrong.

What I actually think:

- I believe Freddie did have a strongly defined sexual identity with marked preferences, but I don’t think Jim Hutton lied when he said that Freddie topped. I believe Freddie did top, but this isn’t the time or place to get into my thoughts on why/when/how much. I do believe that my analysis of the sources relevant to this subject is as historically accurate as one can reasonably be in matters of sex (where historical accuracy will always be particularly limited and imperfect)—but I don’t think it’s morally wrong to write Freddie as topping more than he probably did.

- I don’t believe there’s only one ‘right’ version of Freddie (all others being ‘wrong’). I do believe it is possible to be more right or less right—but I’m also conscious of the fact that this scale of value is not one by which everyone measures fanfiction. As a result, then, I don’t think that any perceptions surrounding ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ justify sending anonymous, non-constructive criticism, or outright hate.

- I do believe constructive criticism is a good thing. I welcome and appreciate it myself; I have received it on my fics in Queen fandom, and it has made them better. I have been in writing workshops which included very forceful criticisms, and the value of such feedback has been intimately and immediately part of my life as a writer for years. However: in this case, I have accepted that my opinion differs from the general community preference, and so I no longer offer any constructive criticism (outside private beta-reading). I haven’t changed my view, but I’ve changed my practice to align with community norms.

- I do not think any single, individual writer has a personal responsibility to write about Freddie Mercury in any given way. That ranges from including the more distressing topics to which I’ve devoted attention (such as trauma)—to concentrating on ‘canon’ pairings like Jimercury—to, even, focusing on Freddie at all.

“Now, that doesn’t sound like you, @freddieofhearts,” you might be thinking. And I know it doesn’t; I think something I’ve done a poor job of articulating is the difference between how I view each individual fan—namely, as free to shape their creative experience at will, even in ways that I might find distressing or offensive; even in ways that you might find distressing or offensive—and the way I view the Collective. I think people have interpreted some of my critiques of ‘Queen Fandom’ as meaning something like: “You-in-particular, a specific Queen fan, are doing it wrong and should change everything about how you do it; also you don’t really care about Freddie.”

And—that’s not it. What any given fan, as an individual, does, isn’t a problem. And that can be true alongside—concurrently with—a multivalent critique of how the fandom is lacking in representation of Freddie’s life, with all that that (wonderful, deservedly celebrated, but also profoundly traumatic) life entailed. I still hold that view; I still have myriad problems with ‘the fandom’ (structurally, collectively, historically and presently—from the 1990s to the 2020s). Some of what I want to work on (away from the social life of fandom) is expressing those critiques with greater nuance, in ways that can’t be misinterpreted as shading any particular fanfiction author or subgenre of story.

In brief: I haven’t changed my mind, but I think Tumblr is an untenable environment in which to discuss the things I want to analyse, especially as there is an ever-present danger of hurting someone.

Can we keep in touch? Where is the fic?

I will drop by this account periodically to check out posts that friends have sent me, so you can always sent me a private message to ask for my contact details on the other app that I’m using now for fandom friends. Multiple Freddie conversations and projects are going on over there, off-Tumblr, with a much ‘gentler’ environment and no bad actors—I personally love it!

All my fic has been downloaded and saved. I don’t want to deal with constant harassment on AO3, but I’m happy to share a copy with anyone who missed it and wants to read/re-read something. I also saved everyone’s lovely comments and thoughtful con-crit, so none of that has been lost or erased.

Thank you to everyone who welcomed me to the fandom, made me think, taught me, shared with me, sent me into fits of the giggles, collaborated with me creatively, and otherwise made this one hell of a ride! Love you all. ❤️

#au revoir my dears #lil gay bby

27 notes · View notes

nickpaterson · 4 years

Text

How my religion taught me to hate

I grew up in a religious family, with Anglican roots. My mother joined a small growing church group, which developed into one of the largest Baptist churches on Vancouver Island. We were part of this same church family from the time I was 4 years old. Now in my 40s, my mother still attends the same group. I am proud that our family was part of and still is part of this growing group that dopes a lot of good and outreach locally in her community. I value relationships and advice from many members of this congregation.

During the troubles of my teenage years, members of this group reach out to me to provide guidance when I was lost, to be supportive when I needed it, and to give advice. One of the most influential people from this church weas my pastor, Mark Buchanan. He was a little man who more often was in board shorts and a Hawaiian shirt with sandals, instead of a stuffy suit. I loved watching him break the norms, and make people uncomfortable, to make them think about why they felt this way. He would walk quietly to the stage, and this big booking voice would get your attention. He put feeling into his speech, and he challenged traditional ideas, kept you rapt to everything he said, made us laugh and cry, and made sure we understood why we did things. Mark also wrote a book called “Your God is too safe”. I still have my autographed copy of the book as well as a spare handed down from my mom. Admittedly, I never read the whole thing, but the title alone caught my attention, and made me want to research more and break the norms to make sure what I thought was right, instead of just safe and familiar.

My mother always gave me ideas to make me think. She told me from a young age to make sure I knew what I believed, and to know why, and that she would support me in those choices as long as I could support my argument with logic and faith. She may not have exercised this as much as she would like, making sure I went to church without fail, even when I didn’t want to, and being less than willing to explore alternate churches. But the idea and the sentiment were there, and they stuck with me throughout my life.

On my own as an adult, I spent a lot of time talking to people of different faiths, and asking questions about how, why, what for, history of, and more. I learned a lot about different denominations and faiths, alternate religions, alternate deities, wicca and witchcraft, natural beliefs and more. Some were fascinating ideas, some were fantasy style stories that kept the attention but not the faith, and some made me incredibly uncomfortable to the point I avoided them in further research. But nothing fit. So, I stuck to what was safe and familiar, not knowing how or why to believe anything else.

In all my research over the years, some ideas stuck and made it into my daily practice, because they meshed with what I read in my bible, and my interpretation of Jesus love and teachings, even if I didn’t see them in practice elsewhere. Because I spent so much time talking to people of different backgrounds, I had a lot of friends who didn’t believe in the same things I did. My biggest takeaway from all of this was acceptance. They didn’t believe in my god, or read my bible, but they answered my questions, and taught me, without judging even if I didn’t accept what they taught. We debated respectfully back and forth and taught each other whatever we could. Nobody was judged, or ostracised, or ridiculed for those beliefs. We made for a pretty hodgepodge group.

I had Jehovas Witnesses try to convert me. I had coffee and visited with Mormons. I head my cards and stars and palms read by Wiccans. I attended Buddhist weddings in a haunted church at the stroke of midnight on Halloween. I went to church with United, nondenominational, Anglican and more services. I saw people speak in tongues, and believe they were performing healing prayers. I even attended a country revival by a river and marched in an anti abortion silent protest. I spent countless hours debating, and researching to reinforce my debates when I got stuck, and learning different viewpoints.

But I accepted everyone regardless of background. I asked questions that may have been ignorant from simply not knowing. I interrupted classes and speeches and took notes. I stayed open to new ideas, and only asked from others what I would be willing to do myself, such as attending each others services to learn from a different viewpoint. The biggest lesson I ever learned in life was that nobody was lesser because they believed something different, or practiced on a different day, or used a different word for God. I wasn’t better than them, or right or wrong. I condemned no one that I could learn from, and hoped that I could teach them some of the same.

I learned many things I don’t want to be a part of. I learned how I didn’t want to be treated or spoken to. I learned what people could blame on their religion, and how awful you could be made to feel in the name of the Holy. I saw some awful bigotry and hate, both in and out of churches. I made decisions that would shape who I have become. I also learned that no matter who they prayed to or when, or how, the crazy truth of it is: Almost everybody preached the same thing with a few small differences, while they condemned everyone else who disagreed.

I even saw this within my own family. For example, one of my nephews has recently chosen to express himself as transgender. So he becomes She. My sister, his mother, chose to support this in the best possible way. I asked questions like “What name do I use and when” and tried to express the parts I didn’t understand, and learn the rest. I let this child teach me whats he needed and I have tried to support her as best as possible. My children followed my example and made me proud. Come Christmas a couple years later, and our religious mother is visiting from the west, and expressing her opinions. She wanted to take my sisters child to a counsellor to get fixed, behind my sisters back, and hoped that I would help. I said no unconditionally. I found out that my older sister had heard our mother venting about this issues, and ripped into her with her opinion that Mom should stay the hell out of it. I do love that our family is at a stage in life where we can be blunt and rational as we discussed this, since a couple days before Christmas we were throwing around religious and opinion thoughts on the subject. I got to look at my mother and say “to be honest, your opinion doesn’t fucking matter, since it’s not your child to raise”. My mom looked shocked and started to be offended, but then realised it was not calling her out or insulting her, and that it was correct. Then I also got to point out to her that at the very least, she should be proud that she raised three children as a single mother, who could all grow into such loving and accepting people that none of us judged or condemned anyone regardless of their way of life or choices. This is again a very abridged version of this whole conversation, but you get the general idea.

One of the biggest wakeup moments that came in my life regarding religion and peoples attitudes towards it came from a church I attended for a while. After over a year of getting to know people and following their teachings, it came that I would be moving to another city. I mentioned to a few nice older folks what city I would be going to, and received a few recommendations on a church to look out for. One particular gentleman, who always went out of his way to speak to myself and my children, and who I believe was an Elder at the church to be respected, gave me this recommendation. I paraphrase: “You should check out Church A. They have this and this and would love a new family with plenty of kids. And you wouldn’t have to worry about any of those fags and weird shit.”

I knew right then that I would never check out his recommendation, and that I would never return to this church. I have spent time since then really listening extra close to sermons and messages put out by other churches and church leaders, and looking for the nuances and lessons they teach to their youth. Everything is put forth as support “You can make your choices within your faith”, Pro life, we will support you when you choose Gods way, and so very many more. Look up newsletters and ads from your local churches and you will see all of these and more in many different wordings.

Look a layer deeper. Listen to what these messages say. “we will support you in gods path, but believe different and you are alone”. “you are evil for choosing different”. You will go to hell for eternity. Our way is the only way and everybody else is wrong. Its very thinly veiled, but every church I’ve been to is secretly teaching me to hate those that are different and hoping that I don’t notice.

Hate gay people because they don’t follow the bible. Hate abortionists for not supporting this fetus regardless of health or history or any other option. Our way is the ONLY way. You cannot be different. You cannot think your own way. We can’t prove it except through vague scripture and ask for blind faith because we said so. You are evil if you disagree. Don’t look different or act different. Judge others and condemn them for having an opinion. See a theme here? You can see this in all those local church and religious flyers too. Just go have a look, I’ll wait here.

Here’s what I learned in Sunday school as I see it. Choose to follow and consider my opinion, or don’t. Your call!

-The Old testament is a history lesson. Here is what God wants you to do and why. Here is what is good and bad, and here is the struggle we went through to get here. Exactly the same as our kids learning about war and holocaust and local history in school. Learn the lessons because people already went through them and get the theory behind the fact.

-The New testament changed everything. We no longer had to sacrifice because Jesus did it for us. Unclean foods didn’t matter because we were purified in faith. Sinful acts could be forgiven if we asked for it. Love everybody as you wish to be loved. Look at the Good Samaritan, he helped a neighbour he should have hated because that’s what he was taught, but he chose to be a good person anyways, regardless of who was on the receiving end. Jesus spent time with beggars, and the terminally sick, prostitutes, and men who had no other ambition in life. He loved them all the same and he gave them the same message, regardless of their background, or choices, or personal opinions. He didn’t ever treat one person as lesser than the next.

The church teaches us to HATE sinfulness in their interpretation, and to shun those who are different or to try and change them to our own way of thinking. I don’t care what church you go to, it will teach the same. Look at these similarities between religions.. Catholicism, Christians of various denominations, jewish, jehovas witness, Mormon, 7th day Adventists, Islamic, Buddhist, even Native cultures. On a base level, the stories handed down through history are very similar, slightly changed through translation and retelling over time. The morals of the stories are the same. Every different denomination of Christianity has the same base teachings and the same roots. They simply split off because one group within that religion disagreed on a base idea, split off, and taught in their own way. Now 2 thousand years later, we have Baptists and Pentecostals and Lutherans and Anglicans, and more, all telling us that everybody else is wrong.

So who’s right? Only each of us can decide that for ourselves. Look at all the common base lessons and live your life to the best of your ability. Follow Jesus teachings, whether you believe he was a man or a prophet, or the son of god, and love your neighbour unconditionally. Decide where you stand on all the slight differences of opinion. It’s all on your and your choice. But stop spreading hate!

Hate destroys everything that religions of all sorts teach. Hate turns religious peoples into conquerers, terrorists, feuding families, and multiple warring factions. Hate causes pain to those on the receiving end, and stress to those on the giving end. There is no possible positive side to hate.

I chose to avoid churches in general for the last few years because I could not handle listening to the hate, and finding the worst possible bigots and liars within the walls of the churches, pretending to be good people on Sunday mornings so other people would look up to them. One day a week does not get you into the kingdom of heaven. A band I listened to said it the best way possible when I was a teenager, but even though I always remembered it, I never understood it. “The greatest single cause of Atheism today are those that praise Him with their words, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle.” - DC Talk -What if I stumble

Stop living hate when you preach love. Practice the words that come out of your mouth, and truly love your neighbour. His religion, color of skin, gender identity, or relationship status should have no bearing on what kind of person they are. You don’t have to LIKE everyone, or spend time with people you don’t mesh with, but you have no right to judge those that have never done a thing to harm you.

Hate the lies of the church teachings, hate the bigotry, Love the man or woman you see in front of you. We are all fighting for the same thing: to wake up each morning, and enjoy our lives in the best way we know how. Hate in any form robs us from this enjoyment of life. You don’t have to believe in God or the Bible to live a good life and be good to others. You only have to have faith in humanity, and making this a good place for everyone to enjoy. Be excellent to each other.

Hate is Baggage. Life is too short to be pissed off all the time. Its just not worth it. – American History X.

15 notes · View notes

devil-may-craft · 5 years

Text

Analysing Visual Semantics

The image above is a cover for the German magazine Stern which was released on the 24th of August, 2017. Stern is a popular weekly magazine that criticises world events. This photo manipulation was a response to Trump’s belated and benign censure of the Charlottesville event, wherein a group of white supremacists came to blows with anti-fascists; a thirty-two year old was killed in the process, and nineteen others were injured (Al Jazeera News 2017; Robinson, B. 2017; Wheaton, O. 2017). 

While this cover came under heavy criticism from the Jewish community in Germany, stating that this “belittles and beclouds past events”, it does send a prominent message (Onyanga-Omara, J. 2017). It was meant to shock; to illicit strong emotions, falling under the rule of pathos, and it’s done just that (PathosEthosLogos 2015).

The most important aspects of this magazine cover are central image and main header. Donald Trump, as president of the United States, stands in a stiff salute with the American flag draped over him. The header, Sein Kampf, meaning my struggle, is a play on words and is meant to mock. The American flag is a strong symbol to the American populace. The Nazi salute is downplayed in the US; the main reason being how attached the American populace is to the First Amendment, which gives them full liberty with free speech. Europe still has strong feelings towards it and Germany actively does its part to make sure nothing like the Nazi regime’s crimes ever happen again (Wildman, S. 2017). Besides being a symbol of antisemitism, it is a symbol of hate, racism, homophobia, and the terrible war crimes of WW2 (Wikipedia 2017).

The grey backdrop may have simply been a colour choice so that the image stands out more, but psychologically, grey is associated with moodiness, loss, and neutrality - not quite the colours needed in today’s trying times yet very telling for the image itself (Bourne, J. 2010).

The flag of the United States of America is steeped in symbolism with its colours, stars and stripes. There are fifty stars on the current flag which represent each of the fifty states. The thirteen stripes, seven red and six white, represent the thirteen colonies. As for the colours, they initially held no meaning but over the years white became to mean innocence and purity, red, hardiness and valour, and blue means justice, vigilance and perseverance (PBS 2017; Streufert, D. 2015).

The first thing that comes to mind when seeing this image is that it is comparing Trump to Hitler. As Rabbis Marvin Heir and Abraham Cooper stated, it is unwise to do so and it seems rather forgetful for a German magazine to do this comparison which may lead to another significance. In fact, in Germany, any engagements that resemble Nazi actions are criminal offences, as many tourists have come to find out (Petkar, S. 2017; Sehmer, A 2015).

TIlman Allert’s The Hitler Salute describes in detail the harsh truths of the meaning behind the aforementioned gesture. The salute was always followed by sieg heil or heil Hitler; a fascist way of saying God save the Queen. The issue is that this statement soon deified the Third Reich, and it’s not farfetched to state that 1930s Germany was akin to modern day North Korea, the main difference is that the Germans didn’t fear Hitler, they voluntarily worshipped him. It is quite interesting to note that the gesture in itself isn’t German in nature; the earliest known use of the stiff, outstretched hand is artistically Roman. Hitler knew this and skewed facts left and right in his favour to enrich the German-Italian camaraderie already in place. His lies and half-truths, delivered with charm, brought disaster to Europe, leading to the ostracisation, humiliation, and ultimately the death of millions (Evans, R. J 2017; Guy-Ryan, J. 2016; Halpern, M. D. 2017)

Stern magazine issued this cover as a warning; Trump will never fill Hitler’s boots, but he is a fascist and white nationalist, and the best way one can depict this is by utilising Nazi symbolism - logically the strongest imagery any German could use; a clear use of logos (PathosEthosLogos 2015). The KKK supported him through his election campaign and many engaged in the Nazi salute the moment the 2016 election results were broadcast. He seems to be constantly making excuses for the far-right and went as far as retweeting a series of anti-muslim and racist tweets (BBC 2016; BBC 2017; Landers, E. and Masters, J. 2017). He’s cemented his stance and Stern is right. 

References:

Al Jazeera News (17 Aug 2017) Charlottescille attack: What, where and who?[online] Available at: <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/charlottesville- attack-170813081045115.html>[Accessed: 28 Nov 2017]

BBC (22 Nov 2016) Hail Trump: White nationalists mark Trump win with nazi salute.[online] Available at: <http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-38057104/ hail-trump-white-nationalists-mark-trump-win-with-nazi-salute>[Accessed: 2 Dec 2017]

BBC (29 Nov 2017) Donald Trump retweets far-right group’s anti-muslim videos.[online] Available at: <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42166663> [Accessed: 2 Dec 2017]

Bourne, J (27 Dec 2010) Color meaning: The meaning of the color gray. [online] Available at: <https://www.bourncreative.com/meaning-of-the-color-grey/ >[Accessed: 30 Nov 2017]

Evans, R. J. (16 Apr 2008) The Hitler Salute: On the meaning of a gesture. NY Sun [online] Available at: <http://www.nysun.com/arts/all-hailed-the-meaning-of-the- hitler-salute/74744/>[Accessed: 4 Dec 2017]

Guy-Ryan, J. (12 Mar 2016) How the nazi salute became the world’s most offensive gesture. Atlas Obscura. [online] Available at: <https://www.atlasobscura.com/ articles/how-the-nazi-salute-became-the-worlds-most-offensive-gesture> [Accessed: 28 Nov 2017]

Halperm, M. D (2017) The Hitler Salute: On the meaning of a gesture. Jewish Book Council [online] Available at: <https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/the-hitler- salute-on-the-meaning-of-a-gesture> [Accessed: 28 Nov 2017]

Landers, E. and Masters, J. (30 Nov 2017) Trump retweets anti-muslim videos.Edition [online] Available at: <http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/29/politics/donald- trump-retweet-jayda-fransen/index.html>[Accessed: 2 Dec 2017]

Onyanga-Omara, J. (25 Aug 2017) German magazine ‘Stern’ criticised for nazi Trump cover. USA Today[online] Available at: <https://www.usatoday.com/story/ news/world/2017/08/25/german-magazine-stern-criticized-trump-cover/601364001/ >[Accessed: 28 Nov 2017]

PathosEthosLogos (2015) Ethos, pathos, logos definitions and examples. [online] Available at: <https://pathosethoslogos.com> [Accessed: 28 Nov 2017]

PBS (2017) The history of the American flag. [online] Available at: <http:// www.pbs.org/a-capitol-fourth/history/old-glory/>[Accessed: 30 Nov 2017]

Robinson, B. (24 Aug 2017) German magazine depicts Donald Trump giving nazi salute on its cover. Express [online] Available at: <https://www.express.co.uk/news/ world/845589/Donald-Trump-Stern-magazine-Nazi-salute-Adolf-Hitler-Der-Spiegel- Charlottesville-rally-KKK>[Accessed: 28 Nov 2018]

Streufert, D. (10 Feb 2005) What do the colors of the flag mean? [online] Available at: <http://www.usflag.org/colors.html>[Accessed: 30 Nov 2017]

Wheaton, O. (25 Aug 2017) German magazine doesn’t hold back with their anti- Trump cover. Metro [online] Available at: <http://metro.co.uk/2017/08/25/german- magazine-doesnt-hold-back-with-their-anti-trump-cover-6878753/>[Accessed: 28 Nov 2017]

Wikipedia (2017) Nazism. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Nazism>[Accessed: 28 Nov 2017]

Wildman, J. (16 Aug 2017) Why you see swasticas in America but not in Germany. Vox. [online] Available at: <https://www.vox.com/world/2017/8/16/16152088/nazi- swastikas-germany-charlottesville> [Accessed: 4 Dec 2017]

#english #graphic design #essay

2 notes · View notes

expatimes · 4 years

Photo

'I'm alive but not living': Survivors of Bangladesh's rape crisis

Sharmin *, a 28-year-old housewife, is one of the thousands of traumatised survivors of a rape epidemic blighting Bangladesh.

It has been three months since she says she was raped by a man from the neighboring village just outside the capital, Dhaka. She describes how he gripped her neck and stomach as he raped her and how she has not been able to eat solid food since it happened.

“If I try to swallow food I can still feel him pressuring my neck and stomach,” she explains.

Sharmin has developed an eating disorder and can only have a few spoons of “panta bhaat”, a soft liquid-like rice, each day.

In 2018, 732 rape cases were reported in the country, according to the Bangladeshi human rights group, Ain o Salish Kendra. The cases almost doubled to 1,413 in 2019. Now with almost 1,000 cases reported so far this year, Bangladesh is seeing more than four rape cases per day on average.

These numbers are thought to be just the tip of the iceberg, according to aid agencies, who report that most women are too afraid to report rape and do not believe they will get justice if they do.

Amnesty International points to the government own figures. Over the past 19 years, according to the government's One Stop Crisis Center, only 3.5 percent of rape cases went to court under the Prevention of Oppression Against Women and Children Act 2000, and only 0.37 percent of cases in convictions. Overall, according to Human Rights Watch, fewer than 1 percent of reported perpetrators are ever convicted.

'I have difficulty breathing'

“Having to live with it is more challenging than my inability to eat,” says Sharmin. “When I do my daily chores I get unprovoked flashbacks of my rape. My body starts to tremble uncontrollably and I have difficulty breathing. ”

She explains how she tries to divert her thoughts but the flashbacks sometimes freeze her body until the whole rape is played out in her mind. If she goes to a doctor with this issue she says she believes he will say she is possessed by a jinn, or spirit, and that people will find out and gossip about her.

“But I would rather have people think I got possessed by a jinn than raped, it saves me the humiliation,” she says.

Protests against male violence towards women have taken place in cities across Bangladesh [Photo courtesy of Monon Muntaka]

Protests have taken place in several cities across Bangladesh following the surge of violence against women. The protests were initially sparked in late September this year by the news that a woman was gang-raped by a group of seven men while her husband was tied up and beaten in the northeastern district of Sylhet.

Further protests erupted following the emergence of a video showing a woman being stripped and abused by a group of five men in the southeastern district of Noakhali. The video, which had been filmed by the men on their phones, circulated on the internet for weeks before being taken down this month. Protests have since been mobilized to challenge sexual violence and misogyny.

While the country's information minister blames pornography for rising rape cases, protesters and aid agencies insist rape culture and gender-based violence are deep-rooted issues that go beyond “just pornography.”

Protesters from Feminists Across Generations, an alliance formed to tackle gender-based violence in Bangladesh, argue that society is embedded with strong conservative and patriarchal values. Activist Umama Zillur, 25, says: “These patriarchal values exist on a structural level, producing strong institutional sexism and social hierarchies that fail to prioritise the rights of women. As a result, cultural and social practices that perpetuate violence against women remains pervasive.

'My in-laws won't eat with me'

The physical and emotional trauma from rape is not all that victims must contend with in Bangladesh: the stigma attached to rape, and the fear of humiliation discourage many survivors from seeking medical help or reporting attacks to the authorities.

Naila Hossain, 32, a social activist working with sexual assault victims in Bangladesh, explains that survivors do not find it easy to come forward as they fear being blamed and ostracised by their communities.

“If an unmarried woman is raped, she may be shunned by society altogether and deemed not worthy of being married or, in some cases, married off to her rapist to preserve the family's 'dignity',” Hossain explains. "Raped women often also flee their homes to avoid such rejection and sometimes even commit suicide."

Women's lives are dictated by a rape culture which stigmatises and revictimises the victims, further impeding their physical and psychological wellbeing.

“The social stigma from rape produces a strong sense of shame for the victims,” says Hossain. “Alongside shifting the blame onto the victim, it associates a woman's honor with their bodies. Essentially all honor is lost when a woman is raped and this stigma is translated in societal hostility and rejection. ”

Worse still, if a survivor has been abused by a family member, she is at risk of being ostracised by her own family.

This is what has happened to Rahena *, a rape victim whose name we have changed to protect her anonymity.

Rahena, a 26-year-old cleaner from Mymensingh, a city north of the capital, Dhaka, says she was raped by a relative of her husband's in their village two months ago.

“My husband won't sleep with me, my in-laws won't eat with me, my parents won't have me around, and nobody in the community will acknowledge me,” she tells Al Jazeera. “But everyone knows the truth. How can they pretend to be oblivious to it? Is this a life worth living? What he has done to me is worse than murder because I am still alive but I am not living. ”

'There is never any justice'

Hossain says that a lack of effort by police to apprehend and punish rapists also dissuades women from coming forward. Largely “nonchalant attitudes towards cases”, she says, negligence, a lack of commitment to solving cases, along with social stigma, all trivialise sexual abuse and delegitimise their experience, so victims continue to stay silent.

“They don't report their rapes or assaults to the authorities because they're afraid nothing will be done,” says Hossain.

Rani *, 19, another survivor who does not wish to disclose any personal details, echoes these concerns about coming forward. She says she believes reporting rape is ineffective because the police will always choose to believe the perpetrator - who will deny the allegations - and will dismiss the case.

She refuses to "fight a battle she has already lost." “I already know the outcome,” she says. “There never is any justice for people like us, why would there be? What are we even worth? ”

She says coming forward may also put her at risk of being attacked by her perpetrator again, as revenge. “It is impossible to report him, he won't go anywhere because he is very powerful. But what about me? I have to live in constant fear of being raped again. ”

Rani now lives her life in fear, worrying that he might attack her again and describes her situation as “impossible to escape”.

“The coronavirus lockdown situation made it worse because he knew I was always home,” she adds. "He could have come again any moment but thank God he hasn't."

'Do we just continue living in fear?'

Umama Zillur, a 25-year-old social activist from Dhaka, says she has become “deeply enraged at the state and society that has contributed to the continuous violence against women”.

“At the core of it, it shows me I am not seen as human,” she says.

Umama Zillur delivers a speech against rape culture during a protest [Photo courtesy of Umama Zillur]

Another university student who has taken part in the protests, 21-year-old Fariha Rahman, who also lives in Dhaka, says she wants to see change on a “structural and society level”, or else “can be the next victim” .

“Girls in this country live in fear of being attacked. The fact that my evening classes are made up mostly of men and morning by girls just illustrates our fear. I once took an evening class. When I was on my way home my heart sank to my stomach and I almost had an anxiety attack because it was dark and I thought someone would attack me. Do we then just continue living in anxiety and fear? ”

Kabita *, 24, from the southeastern city of Cumilla who also did not wish to be identified, says being able to go outside is her only form of escape from her family, with whom she has a poor relationship. But the fear of rape and the coronavirus lockdown have put paid to any freedom she might have.

“This lockdown has meant months of verbal and mental abuse for me from my parents. When they read about the rapes they become concerned for my safety and overly paranoid that something might happen to me.

“Now they're restricting me from going out but they are my real abusers. Not safe to go outside but not safe to stay inside, either. How is this fair for me? ”

Kabita adds that although she has not been diagnosed, she feels she has developed symptoms of depression and self-harm tendencies from staying at home.

Death penalty for rapists

On October 12, Bangladesh's government set measures to allow the death penalty for rapists in an amendment that elevates the maximum punishment from life in prison to death. Bangladesh's Minister of Law, Anisul Huq, said he believes the law will result in a decrease in the number of rapes.

Members of a feminist group take part in an ongoing protest in front of the parliamentary building, demanding justice for the alleged gang rape of a woman in Noakhali, southern district of Bangladesh, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Dhaka, Bangladesh , October 10, 2020 [Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters]

Activists, however, do not see this measure helping. The introduction of the death penalty is a short-term solution - a way to curb the protests and to hamper the movement, they say. And activists are not accepting it, adds Zillur.

“Specific rape law reformation needs to be implemented, followed by larger societal conversations that address root causes,” she says. "The government should consider proposals put forward by The Rape Law Reform Coalition that set forth 10 points for addressing the shortcomings in the legal and institutional framework and offer a set of solutions."

As for the death penalty acting as a deterrent, Rani says she knows men will never be convicted due to their privilege of “being men” and “staying well-connected in society”.

“I don't think there will be any use of the death penalty. My fate was already decided when I was raped. Nothing will ever change for people like me. ”

* Some names have been changed to protect the anonymity of victims.

. #world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=12648&feed_id=11774

#Asia #Bangladesh #Features #SexualAssault #Women039sRights

0 notes

meandmymentalhealth67220 · 4 years

Text

I feel like the trauma that was induced in me... is induced the right word? Maybe incepted is better? It was an altering of my mind and ways of thinking, to be fair. Anyway, I feel like the trauma I suffered has led my brain to found a connection to people that might not have been remotely good for me for a variety of reasons. This process may mean that my brain struggles with moving on from those past relationships for a variety of reasons, even if they are long over, even if they were always damaging, even if they caused me pain, and even if I am better without them.

They have led me to believe I have low value, because if these relationships did not work out, then surely it shows I am an awful person? And if that is the case, it fulfils ever dangerous and bad thing my parents made me feel about myself. Which is triggering, because if puts me back in the emotional space I was in, and leads to flashbacks and anxiety. Which are now starting again after a long period without them.

But do those relationships really define me? Do they truly show my actual value? How many people, say, stay with the same group of people forever, anyway? Take me in primary school. By high school, my peer group was entirely different. Me in high school was somewhat different to me in college, and then different again at uni. With different jobs come different people, moving to different places changes things. You lose touch, you grow, you meet new people, your tastes change.

My best friend in primary school would no doubt think I'm a weirdo and a pervert. My best friend from high school doesn't, as I still know him and he's still my best and most loyal friend. My best friend at uni wasn't even really that much of a friend. My best friend at my first proper job is long gone from my life, and the friend after that became a drug addict. My best friend from my days clubbing is now ever so slightly fucking crazy. On and on.

And what do these relationships say about my self-worth? Is my value dependent on the opinions and lasting friendships with others? No, because interpersonal relationships have no real, measurable value. They are intangible concepts, only existing as a side effect of chemicals in the brain. So, if the emotions we attach to them have no value in and of themselves, why bother?

I guess because emotions are what stealth-Christian tosspot right-wing dipshits would call a "hidden economy". They aren't, but belief in an intangible thing can affect our worldview of intangibles and concepts and emotions. What it kind of means is that these things have value to us, and there is some kind of emotional give and take between us via our bio-organic feedback loops with reality.

Worse, the filters on such communicative loops can become warped and distorted by trauma. Someone hits you, and so your filter always anticipates violence, for example. So a friend raises a hand to brush hair from your face, you see it, your brain tries to protect you, you react as though they are about to hit you, and then their own feedback loop kicks in to react to that.

But trauma always means others will assume guilt on your part for a reaction, rather than seeing the hidden hurt that was caused by others. The gossipy low-rent Judgy McJudgepeople will always say that a flinch away is you judging them, as a pretense to allow them to judge you. Rule number one: most people reinforce social rules that will allow them to behave in a certain way should they deem it necessary. That's why we should ostracise anyone who thinks assault or sexually abusive behaviour is something worth explaining or worthy of being an apologist for.

So, back to my friends who, because of trauma, I may have a needless attachment to which should probably end.

Let's consider them.

J was an assault/abuse apologist, a manipulator, and a liar, and likely saw it as a way to allow space for her own similar behaviour. Is the loss of them a reflection on me? No. Is my going insane a reflection on me? I couldn't control it, and begged the NHS for help they didn't give me, so no.

L was an abuse apologist, a liar and a a vindictive, vengeful passive-aggressive abuser, who was using her own hurt to attack me in a way that would make me hurt. Her actions don't reflect on me, or my reaction to her which was to apologise, try to explain, and eventually walk away from most of a friendship group to put a stop to it, even if I had a screaming temper tantrum when I was grieving over my grandad dying.

J2 showed a distinct lack of empathy for my grief, when their own grief was treated with respect and kindness. She has been bossy, was nasty to me exacerbating a nervous breakdown, and throw whatever friendship we had in the bin out of spite solely because, like a lot of my friends, actual emotion terrifies them and is considered impolite. It doesn't reflect on me that she considers bullying fine so long as she doesn't have to deal with it, and my reaction was, again, beyond my control.

D suddenly vanished an abandoned me at a time when I was in greatest need of help and support, without explanation. Could constantly post online, but couldn't even send a message my way when I was trying my best the other way. It doesn't reflect on me that they behave in that manner, and my reaction was to do basically nothing, so no blame there.

A broke promises to me that made my health worse, kept getting me to come meet her and not showing up or replying to messages (despite being online 24/7 the rest of the time), had fucking unrealistically crazy expectations of the behaviour of others, and then tried to gaslight me. I exploded at her in anger, but, you know what? Good. The fact that I couldn't speak my mind around such a person without worrying it would end our friendship shows what a bad friendship it was to begin with. It doesn't reflect on me that they did this, the only thing that reflects on me was that I put up with it for so long. And in return, I have said and done nothing, and have been let down even more as a consequence by her.

Meanwhile, Z really hurt me, but we've made up and she apologised. She's growing and trying to change and get to a happier place, and I'm proud of her. And she's been through a lot of trauma, too, but you have to give people the opportunity to change and show they can get better and improve and be the awesome people you thought they were originally, even though that's only one side of a many-sided entity called "the human".

So, I feel down. But writing this put things in perspective for me. I'm not the bad guy. There are no bad guys. All these other people are just as fucked up as me, as any of us, and maybe they are just trying to save face, maybe they just react like I do. Well, except that some of them are quite frankly not good for my health and I'm better off not being around them, but how do I fix my filter so that I don't behave the same way with actual worthwhile people? Maybe I need to write on here more. Get more in touch with my own feelings on this. It might help fight off the flashbacks.

0 notes

brajeshupadhyay · 4 years

Text

Total confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa pass 1 million | World news

More than 1 million people in Africa have been infected by the Covid-19 virus, health authorities on the continent have announced. Confirmed Covid cases in African countries have risen fivefold in the the past two months and more than doubled in July.

The landmark of 1 million cases will raise new concerns that frail healthcare systems will be overwhelmed as the infectious disease hits populations already weakened by poor diet or other illnesses.

According to the the African Union’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 700,000 have recovered from the disease so far, and 22,000 have died. There are widespread concerns that official figures represent only a fraction of the casualties of Covid-19 on the continent.

Some experts describe the official totals compiled by the World Health Organization from statistics supplied by governments as “the the tip of the iceberg” and say the true total is 10 or even 100 times higher.

Low rates of testing, a lack of political will, prejudice against victims, poor infrastructure and communications are among the many factors that obscure the true picture of the pandemic’s impact on African countries, the experts told the Guardian.

Some countries on the continent – such as Tanzania – have failed to provide any useful statistics to the World Health Organization for months, while others have reported counts so low that they stretch credibility.

“The continent is at a pivotal point,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, last week. “The virus has spilled out of major cities and spread into distant hinterlands. Countries need to keep apace and urgently decentralise their key response services. We can still stop Covid-19 from reaching full momentum, but the time to act is now.”

In May, the WHO raised the possibility that the disease could “smoulder” in Africa for many years to come after killing as many as 190,000 people in 12 months. The organisation predicted that between 29 million to 44 million people could become infected in the first year of the pandemic if containment measures fail. This “would overwhelm the available medical capacity in much of Africa”, where there are only nine intensive care beds per million people.

South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Ghana and Nigeria currently account for about 75% of the cumulative Covid-19 cases in Africa. Everywhere, the youth of populations relative to Europe has helped keep mortality rates low.

Zweli Mkhize, South Africa’s health minister, gave an upbeat assessment on Wednesday, saying that some evidence suggested the peak of infections in the most populous and connected parts of the continent’s most industrialised country had passed.

“We have not breached our bed capacity and many of our field hospitals are not filled to capacity, and we continue to monitor this as we manage the surge … The real risk of experiencing the ‘second wave’ of the pandemic remains, so containment measures must never be abandoned,” Mkhize said.

Scientists in South Africa, where statistics are seen as broadly reliable, recently estimated more than 28,000 excess deaths have been recorded since early May, suggesting that the true number of fatalities caused by the pandemic is several times higher than the government count of just over 7,000 confirmed Covid-19 deaths.

Mkhize said new efforts would be made to collect information on “sudden deaths and deaths that occur at home”.

One problem across the continent is a systemic failure to register deaths. Only eight countries in Africa record more than three out of every four of deaths, according to the United Nations.

“It is astounding that in the 21st century we still don’t know how many people are born, die and what they die from in countries where such data is sorely needed to guide vital healthcare strategies,” said Dr Philip Setel, vice-president for civil registration and vital statistics at the global health organisation Vital Strategies.

“In South Africa there is good mortality data, but in most sub-Saharan countries I don’t think we do understand the full picture of the pandemic.”

Widespread stigma against Covid victims is also a problem. The way people were treated early in this pandemic is “just like the way, early on in the HIV epidemic, patients were being treated”, Salim Abdool Karim, an epidemiologist who chairs South Africa’s Covid-19 ministerial advisory committee, told a World Health Organization event last month. Now, some people are avoiding being tested for the virus “because if they test, they’re ostracised”, he added.

The intensive care unit at Martini hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, where stigma surrounding the disease has deterred people from being tested. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

In Somalia, “our teams are seeing people who have tested positive running away from their homes out of fear of being stigmatised by the community,” Abdinur Elmi, an official with the aid group Care, said in a statement.

Last week the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said the lack of reliable data left those fighting the disease “in the dark”. Though the WHO recommends at least one test per 1,000 people per week, countries like Niger and South Sudan have not managed more than one test per 1,000 in the five months since the outbreak began.

Resources remain scarce, with limited supply of key materials and a lack of funding for many testing programmes across the continent.

“Much more is going on than meets the eye,” said Michelle Gayer, director of emergency health at the IRC. “We really need to ramp up testing. Without knowing the extent, you are not taking appropriate action. The financial part is really important. The UK and the US have done millions of tests, and we need that kind of capacity [in Africa].”

Researchers have been forced to seek new ways of monitoring the spread of the disease, such as observing the rate at which graves are dug or counting Google searches for information on Covid-19 symptoms.

In Ethiopia, where less than one in 50 deaths are officially registered, a scheme set up to monitor deaths related to HIV/Aids a decade ago has been repurposed to focus on the new threat. Elsewhere, nations are restarting programmes set up during Ebola outbreaks.

In Nigeria, media reports citing gravediggers alerted authorities to an undetected Covid-19 outbreak in the northern city of Kano in April, when deaths surged from a daily average of 11 to 43. In Somalia, the mayor of Mogadishu admitted dramatically higher death tolls after an investigation by the Guardian.

Last week the WHO said that nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa were reporting a decline in cases.

Many countries in Africa imposed strict lockdowns that inflicted significant hardship on hundreds of millions of people across the continent living in crowded and often unsanitary conditions. Many depend on earnings during the day to be able to eat and there are widespread reports of hunger.

A range of innovative solutions are being considered to the lack of hard data. Surveys conducted by mobile phone could be another way to measure deaths.

“To complement rapid mortality surveillance, mobile phone surveys are a potential innovation that might be a quick way to obtain a snapshot of the mortality at a national level,” said Setel. “Though this method still needs validation, is it one worth exploring.”

The post Total confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa pass 1 million | World news appeared first on Shri Times News.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3fEPYPE

#Blogger #Africa #Coronavirus Outbreak #Infectious diseases #Science #Total confirmed coronavirus cas

0 notes

thisdaynews · 4 years

Text

BREAKING:Ekiti APC splinters into factions as leaders fight dirty.

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/breakingekiti-apc-splinters-into-factions-as-leaders-fight-dirty/

BREAKING:Ekiti APC splinters into factions as leaders fight dirty.

Intra-party crises among prominent members of the ruling All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State are threatening the survival of the party and its chances in future elections, ABIODUN NEJO writes