Jerry's Odd Corner of the Internet

(via askapansexual)

Source: storiesofthelgbtqia

joshibelieveinit:

Lately, as a gay man, I have been exploring  outspoken the world of tumblr and national news regarding civil liberties. There are freedom of marriage fights being waged across the country so that men can marry men and women can marry women. This is what I have been watching and waiting for, and my partner ( whom I call my Husband, sexy foxy devil that he is) and I have been so involved in this as we moved through our twenties that I think we have been out of the loop on the new sexual and gender identity issues surfacing all around us. I’ll explain.

As many of you out there know, a bevvy of sexual identity terms has sprouted up and outward over the past 10 years or so. When I was in high school, we has transexuals (barely), gays, lesbians, bisexuals. That was pretty much it. That’s what we knew, and what we fought to establish and protect. We were building on the foundation started for us by a generation of persecuted men and women living their lives in secret, whose history and struggle I knew of, but never fully embraced until adulthood. As a child who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, once I knew what I was, I also knew I had it better off than that previous generation. They accomplished that very parental role of making the world a better place for the next group of souls to wander down the paths they forged. Even so, we all faced our own bullies, demons, shame-monsters and abandonment issues. Those of us who came through are much stronger for it. We lost a few, sadly, over the years, but I can’t help feeling we’d have lost even more of our little oddball queer tadpoles if we hadn’t had predecessors to show us how to swim against the current.

As I began to explore, a few things happened. I saw newer forms of sexual identity appreciation blooming. I learned was cisgendered and pansexual are. I heard the voices of those in the trans community reaching out in pain and frustration for not being accepted and fought for by the gay and lesbian community. at first, this was difficult for me to understand. As I had known it, this fight had been a close knit cabal of refugees banded together by common cause. Perhaps I misconstrued the tail end of this bonded brother/sisterhood as something which would be everlasting, in the same way a child cannot foresee the end of summertime.

But, the times must and always change. These kids in their early twenties and late teens just following me were able to be openly gay without the aid of the trans community. Some, not all,but some began to pull away from our transexual friends.  Others used personal preference to define what the new gay/lesbian movement should entail.They started a small movement of opinion with annecdotal colloquialisms:

“There are no bisexuals, only gays who haven’t admitted it. What a tranny. I only like masculine, outdoorsy types. She’s a lesbian bottom. I could never date a trans person, the equipment isn’t the same.”

Slowly these preferences coalesced into a culture-cloud big enough for our siblings in civil rights to feel. And it hurt them like losing a blood relative. Like another limb of the family tree which was cut off, they lost that supporting arm. Now, we have trans-community activists fighting to get something done with less help from the gay/lesbian community.

This is bullshit. 

A key concept in Buddhism is that when we look at the world around us, and really see it for what it is, we will begin to notice that separation is an illusion and that all things are truly one thing.

All fights for Civil rights are one fight. When it comes down to the bones of why we fight for rights, it’s so that everyone can have them. Equally. So that we all can be who we are meant to be. So that we can love who we want to love, and live safely. We are not separate. We are part of a greater picture of family, and we owe it to each other to fight for not just our own rights, but for the rights of those next to us, to empower them to fight for those next to them, and the ones to follow.

When you feel alone, trans friends, pan-sexual friends, unknown friends, remember this idea. Separation is an illusion. We really are one, and there are others who know it, who feel you and your struggle and we are here. Don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking you are less than anything or anyone. We love you and we will help you.

I just really love this post, and it makes me so happy to see. :)

crystalizedmaddness:

Rosemount, Minnesota (CNN) — Andrew Wilfahrt changed his gait in the weeks before going off to basic training. He walked more upright. He bulked up with weights. He spoke with a deep Robocop voice. He acted “manly.”

Through the eyes of his parents, Jeff and Lori, it was all a bit strange.

This was the boy who told them he was gay at 16 after being confronted with exorbitant bills from Internet chat rooms. Who lobbied for gay rights in his high school and escaped the fists of football players when hockey players came to his rescue. Who had the courage to wear pink and green even after his car was spray-painted with “Go Home Fag!”

All his parents ever wanted was for Andrew to be Andrew.

At 29, he sat his mom and dad down at the kitchen table and told them his life was missing camaraderie, brotherhood. “I’m joining the Army,” he said.

The news surprised them. Why would Andrew enter the military, where he’d be forced to deny a part of who he is?

He was a lover of classical music, a composer, a peace activist, a math genius. He studied palindromes, maps, patterns, the U.S. Constitution, quantum physics.

A soldier?

It had never really crossed the minds of his left-leaning parents. Yet, just as they’d done with all three of their children, they supported him. It wasn’t easy. It became dreadfully painful.

When their son wound up in Afghanistan in July 2010, Jeff awoke early each day to Google “Kandahar.” He tracked every soldier killed in the far-off land.

Then, on February 27, 2011, at the same oak table where Andrew said he was joining up, the Wilfahrts learned their oldest child was gone.

“I want to talk directly to somebody in his platoon!” Jeff told the officer and chaplain seated across from him. He wanted to know for sure that this wasn’t a behind-the-shed killing of the gay guy.

Cpl. Andrew Charles Wilfahrt, 31, is believed to be the first gay U.S. soldier to die in battle since President Obama signed the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the policy forcing gays in the military to hide that part of their lives or risk being kicked out.

He was also among the smartest in the half-million force, scoring a perfect score on his aptitude test, a feat the Army says is rare.

Andrew was so well-liked his comrades named a combat outpost for the soldier with the infectious smile. COP Wilfahrt sits 6 kilometers from Kandahar. To his buddies, it is not named for a gay soldier, but for one who fought with valor.

“Mom, everyone knows. Nobody cares,” he told his mother in their final conversation, a phone call from Afghanistan on Thanksgiving.

In a biography he left on his laptop, Andrew described himself as someone who “espoused casual solipsism, the idea that ultimately one can know only oneself and nothing more.

“Although close to my parents and siblings, I generally prefer solitude and introspection, and have but few close associates,” he wrote.

“I have maintained ‘bachelor status’ with the strictest of discipline, and a discipline I secretly wish would be compromised by a charming beauty.”

Andrew never denied his sexuality. But like so many, he struggled with what it means to be gay in America. Yet it was only one part of him. He was so much more. In the note on his laptop, he never used the words gay or homosexual to define himself. His younger sister, Martha, says it’s the least interesting thing about him.

But with his death, his parents have taken up the cause of gay rights. Andrew fought for his nation in a foreign land. His parents’ war is being waged in their home state of Minnesota. To them, it’s about defending the Constitution — protecting the rights of all citizens.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/02/gay.soldier.andrew.wilfahrt/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

(via edwincole-deactivated20110918-d)

leftish:

but after those elections what kind of legislation do we actually get?

Abortion, gay marriage, English as an official Language, banning Sharia Law?, stripping Union Rights…

All this stuff is not about jobs and the economy, but it IS about capitalizing on how afraid people are IN a bad economy. It’s about telling Americans that other Americans are the enemy. It’s about splitting people up.

It makes political sense, but it’s really bad for the country.

~ Rachel Maddow

lovelisandro:

Seriously.

It’s called The Sexual Fluidity Project.

It’s currently a submission blog, where you submit audio, text, and video responses

to questions concerning the spectrum of sexuality

(listed on the blog’s page).

After the project coordinators cut off submissions

(which won’t be any time soon, so no worries)

they will take the responses and compile them into a documentary

“that explores sexuality and all the complexities of it.”

During the editing process, each submission will be posted

so you guys can take a look at what’s being discussed

and then submit your own responses if you’d like.

The blog provides a list of questions and LGBTQQIA-etc. terms and definitions,

and moderators answer all questions pretty promptly.

Check it out, it’s really interesting: http://sexualfluidityproject.tumblr.com/

Love, Lisandro.

eligavin:

1. So you don’t like his music.  Neither do I.  But in all honesty, does it really fucking matter?  If you don’t like his music, you don’t have to listen to it.  Why does it mean that you have to constantly hurl insults at this kid?  Because that’s what he is.  He’s a person, not just a face in the media, and he’s a fucking kid.

2. Why is male femininity the best insult people can come up with?  Why is that just so terribly inconceivable, that a guy be feminine, that it’s the butt of every joke and a horrible insult used against someone you dislike?  Lay off gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and gender and sexual stereotypes.  All that those jokes do is further an atmosphere that limits people to out-dated interpretations of what gender and sex mean in society.  I’d like to think that we’re at least a little bit beyond that nonsense by now.

This. 100% THIS.

(via eligavin-deactivated20130117)

nuclearpiggy:

I’m tired of pansexuals bashing bisexuals and bisexuals bashing pansexuals. If you don’t understand each other, you have google right at your fingertips. Better yet, just ask the person about their orientation. It seems like there’s a lot of misunderstanding between the two communities and it’s a bit tragic to watch you rip each other apart like wild dogs because of it.

You can’t hate each other over how you choose to love. It doesn’t work that way.

I’ve never seen people genuinely hating on pansexuals until I tracked the pansexuality tag just now. There’s some moron who’s being all “THERE IS NO INBETWEEN, ONLY MEN AND WOMEN, RAHRAHRAH”. I call her a moron not because of whatever her sexuality is (Because I don’t give a shit what it is), but because she is a closed-minded idiot who thinks she can dictate what is and is not. The fact is that pansexuality is as real as any other sexuality, and to say that biologically everyone is either male or female completely leaves out and erases intersex people. And what about trans* people?! Do they just not exist, or something? Am I imagining the millions and millions of trans* people around the world? For fuck sakes, how much of an intolerant ass can you be? I find that kind of bass-akwards illogical shit to be moronic, cissexist, and yes, I’m ranting because it deserves to be ranted about. I’m tolerant and accepting of everyone except those who have hate in their hearts.

Here’s the original post, in all of it’s hateful, ignorant glory. It’s ironic, btw, that she tags it saying that she doesn’t hate pansexuals, when the last line of the post is “You’re all shit, stop trying to be different and get over yourselves.”

If only people could have common sense and logic punched into them…unfortunately, I’d have to hit her so many times, she’d be dead by the time she had the common sense of a five-year-old.

(via nuclearpiggy-deactivated2012052)

Source:

itsanlgbtthing:

Submitted by lesbi-love

THIS