Bullying within the LGBTQ community

Article from OUT.com: Sam Smith talks about his experiences with homophobic bullying — but he says other gay men can be the worst.

Bullying is everywhere, but the worst is when you come to a group of people with hope that you will be finally accepted for whom you are. This sunday I went with the local LGBT organisation to walk for women’s rights. With a coffee at hand, one who is part of the board, an elder drag queen commented about how silly neutral pronouns are, and it doesn’t help anyone to know who you are talking about it. He pointed at me and another woman and said “for instance, you two are ‘she’, I’m ‘he’ and he is ‘he’, obviously”. I wanted to scream, cause I am tired to have people assume my gender. For years I felt like that, but never understood why. Now that I understand, I didn’t have the guts to say “yeah, no, ‘zie’ not ‘she’ for me, thank you, don’t assume my gender”. When I was the board chairperson for an old and successful student LGBTQ association, there was a whole discussion about changing our name from the 30 year old “Gay Students” to something more inclusive to the whole LGBTQ community. The old members of the board (who were in fact cis-gay-men) left after we changed the name to something inclusive to all LGBTQ students. A complete fall out.

I want to believe that the LGBTQ community is welcoming to all, more open minded, as they have grown up being discriminated and bullied, but the reality is that we are not. Being bisexual can be something that many who are homosexual find silly, as in “pick a side, you can’t have both” or “you are not gay enough”. Being trans can be slightly unwelcoming at times. Even “innocent” comments such as one from a lesbian friend to my partner and me: “So as you (my partner) are the sporty masculine one, she (me) must be into dresses and makeup, like my girlfriend is”. Again, I screamed inside of frustration. I rarely wear makeup, and yes, I wear dresses at times, while my partner never wears skirts or dresses. That does NOT mean I am the girl in the relationship. Or gay men that have to have a certain body type to be accepted by other gay members of the community, as fellow blogger ARIES MAN explains in his article “Real (Gay) Men (Don’t) Have Curves“.

It seems that it is human essence to bully and discriminate. There might be some kind of evolutionary explanation to have this need for it. Hell, I used to be a major gossiper in my younger years. I was bullied, but I talked behind people’s back, and it made me feel better. But we should know better. People commit suicide thanks to bullying, it is serious, and when it is a group of people that should understand how feels to be different, it feels even worse when it comes from them.

Take the next step: become an activist

I am a tiny bit ashamed to admit, but I watched Saturday’s Melodifestivalen (a Swedish music competition to determine this year’s Eurovision representative for Sweden). Yep, it seems that my genes took the better of me, and here I am, publicly talking about this contest. However, I watch it for other reasons than most. Yes, I want the best song to win and it is entertaining. Yet, it has become a more and more political show, and I love to evaluate what each country offers as their representative from a feminist point of view. It is a perfect show to evaluate gender representations for each country. Sweden has been doing quite well to balance the singers and dancers, as well as not sexualising every female performer, like some countries do (ie. Poland in last year’s Eurovision). And wow, Conchita Wurst, the major win last year? So exiting!

So now that I have shamefully defended my fondness of Eurovision, I want to share with you something quite outstanding. Loreen, Sweden’s winner two years ago, came out with a new single. She performed it with a pair of pants and a bare torso with hair to cover her breasts, and she performed together with Kazaky, an Ukrainian synthpop dance boyband. Kazaky have been criticised by Russian’s anti-gay groups by calling them inhuman and an abomination. I leave you with their show this weekend.

The reason why I find this important to share, is that as much shit that is happening around the world, there are activists out there acting. There are groups of people working for a better future, through politics, art, music, influence, studying, working on community projects, educating, and so forth. As today is International Women’s Day (or rather, International Day for Women’s Rights), I want to focus solemnly on equality. Today I marched, proudly, with a super sized LGBT rainbow flag. Last year today, the same march ended with a racist, fascist and sexist attack on some participants, which left them in intensive care and in a coma. And even though this could happen again, more people participated this year, chanting “out with the racists, in with the feminists”. It is about unity and organisation. With unity we conquer all, we make things happen, we create change. Loreen’s show was touching – she questioned gender. I applaud her, because there are not many that do it so publicly and so eloquently. The same goes to Conchita Wurst – even though Russia was obviously not happy with that show.

Do not be afraid to take action and to be part of the community. You are currently sitting behind a laptop, smartphone or a tablet, and I assume you found this article thanks to certain tags that I added of which you are interested. Knowledge is everything. The more you read, the more opinions you acquire, the more you will understand about complex social issues like gender, feminism, politics.  Social media is a great tool to create change: feminism has never been stronger and better understood, environmental movements are stronger and better understood, you have freedom of speech, debates, discussions – great to connect and share ideas and thoughts! But we have to remember that we are humans. Some change will happen as you write on your keyboard thoughts and ideas, inspiring those that are capable and free to take the first step for change. As humans, we need to feed into this community unity, getting out there, witness the problem for ourselves, create a change in our own community. We need to take the first step in our community, as scary as it may seem. Otherwise join someone who did.

I will not wish you a happy women’s day. I hate the fact that we need such a day, and I hate the fact that I even need to write an article like this. How would life be if we were, in fact, free? No violence, no hate, no jealously, no greed? But we are not there. The reality of the situation is, we will never be there, but we will certainly make it very difficult to overrule the good in people. Be kind to one another, be compassionate, help develop the step into a more unified species. With all the shit that is happening out there, from wars to climate change, environmental crimes and diseases, we sure need to be a more unified species.

A Gender Revolutionary: iO Tillett Wright

Man, woman, female, male, unisex, agender, bigender, transgender, gender expression, gay, bi, pansexual… boxes and boxes of identities, all to be broken down after listening to this fantastic person:

March for Equality on Sunday

“The gay scene”. I tend to avoid using that phrase. I find that it discriminates the gay community. LGBT people are not any different from the rest of the world. We may have some different experiences but we are not different, because every single person has a different experience to everyone else. There is no “gay scene” or “gay culture” – at least I didn’t get the memo.

We tend to hang out with those alike, especially when it comes to sexual orientation, religion, nationality and/or race – stuff we have in common, experiences we have in common, perceptions that we have in common. Yet, the brave ones that reach to those unlike them, are the ones that change mentalities, because they are the ones that show that we are not so different as we appear to be.

I have avoided pride parades or women’s rights demonstrations for a while because it puts people in a box. The only time I went to a pride parade was to “march for those who can’t”.* But overall I felt that it was causing more barriers in our society, which is why I am rather against it. But this mentality has changed.

On Sunday, March 8th, I will participate in the International Women’s Day. I will join the local LGBT group and participate in the demonstration – I will walk for freedom of speech, I will join to show that we are many who want equal rights, I march because the march is not over, I march because I want to show that I exist – I’m part of this society, look at me, look at us, we are many! I may be struggling with my gender identity, but it doesn’t matter – this is about equal rights.

It is soon women’s day – a day in which I am used to receive flowers (nowadays cyber flowers), a hug and a thank you. Wait, what? Thank you for what? No. Give me equal pay, give me the right to adopt a child and marry the person I love. Give me the chance to not be afraid of rape when walking home. Give me the freedom to dress what the f*ck I want without being sexualised or accused that I want sex. Give the freedom to talk, walk and be the way I am without constrains. Give me the power to decide over my own body. And after these changes, I will thank YOU.

Participate in your community’s activity on Sunday, and bring a friend, encourage someone else who would possible not join the march, for instance, a man. This is not about a woman who has to be thanked for birthing kids or cooking, it is about everyone understanding that there is in fact no equality among us, and it has to change.

* While the groups in front of us and behind us drank and danced to the music, we walked in silence with white t-shirts and black tape on our mouth, marching for those who have been murdered or that wish they were dead due to the difficulties in being LGBT in their country. Those who watched us, clapped when we passed – it was amazing.

Same-Sex Couples: let’s have a baby!

Yes, stem cell research has now proved that it is possible for same sex couples to have a baby! Instead of using eggs and sperms, they used stem cells. Of course, this also will be perfect for those couples that are infertile due to whatever disease or genetic miss-match.

As much as this breakthrough is outstanding within fields of stem-cell biology, developmental genetics and epigenetic, it is still a very ethical matter. The due date for this research to be available publicly is still not possible to decide. It will be exciting to see what will come from this research. I am looking forward to see it happen.

As a side note, for you couples out there thinking about having a child, do consider adoption.

Intolerance is intolerant

As an activist and cinema enthusiastic, I loved watching the Oscars last night. It is fantastic to see people that are under the radar by the rest of the world talk about women’s rights, discrimination based on race and sexual orientation, suicide and depression, ALS and Alzheimer’s. There was a lack of humour in the show, but I think it was good considering all the hate we are witnessing around the world – hate based on differences. I am not talking only about religion, but also the whole racial discrimination in the US.

On a different note, the Academy is being accused of being unfair because all nominees where white, and most, if not all, writers and producers were male. On one side, I do not understand why no actors from Selma were nominated when the movie itself was nominated. Moreover, you also have to focus on the bigger picture. The nominees are based on what movies there are out there. There is not diversity when it comes to protagonists, unless the race or sexuality or gender is important to the plot. For example, if the protagonist is gay then the plot is around this fact. It would be refreshing to see Birdman being portrait by a lesbian or Sniper by a black American man or even woman. Yes, it is important to tell stories about discrimination, but I also find important that there are blockbusters with characters that are more diverse.

When it comes to producers and writers, it is more than obvious that they are mostly male. For instance, Marvel’s Agent Carter – at first sight it is fun to watch a heroine who is struggling in a man dominated environment in the 1940s. On the other hand, it is written and produced only by men. Men telling stories about women. White men telling stories about slavery. Straight people telling stories about gay struggles. Yet, I find that gay stories are usually told by gay people, but a story about women struggles are still mostly told by men. This is why actresses/producers like Reese Witherspoon take the matter on their own hands and start a production company.

But things are changing, slowly but they are. Having gay Oscar hosts for two consecutive years, listening to Patricia Arquette talking about women’s rights and then seeing Meryl Streep and J-Lo enthusiastically supporting that speech. Listening to Glory, seeing a huge group of people on stage, that just 50 years ago would not have the right to be there at all. Listening to John Stevens and Lonnie Lynn’s acceptance speech not only talking about racial discrimination but also LGBT rights. And lastly seeing Terrence Howard emotional when presenting nominated movie The Imitation Game about Alan Turing that, even though he helped win WWII, was criminalised for being gay.

I finally feel that I have been heard. These people talked about me yesterday, as a woman, but more importantly as a gay citizen. Former slaves got their rights, but unfortunately people who are black are still discriminated against. On the other hand, millions of LGBT people are still fighting for their rights – the right to mary, the right to love, the right to have children. Yet, things are changing. Slowly, but they are changing. There are more and more people talking about it. The past few years I have seen an extreme change in celebrity’s behaviour. It is no longer tolerant to be intolerant, and that same message is coming across in movies and series – sometimes subtle, other times obvious – and more and more people are being less and less afraid to shout and put themselves out there, either for themselves or others. Thanks to internet, our national and cultural barriers are crashing, we are more informed, we have more tools and an easier time to share, educate, and work together for a better world.

Three-person Babies

Very exciting news from the UK! The ministers have voted yes for three-person babies, meaning that those women with mitochondrial defects, which would cause their children to be sick, can have them substituted with healthy mitochondria from another woman. This is an exciting news because it will lead to more open mindedness within pre-natal genetic issues.

I am excited that this will help remove genetic deficiencies within a population, however, it will also help me conquer my dream to have a child with my wife. Yes, I am hopping that during my life-time I will be able to have a child with two eggs and no sperm. Science has done this with mice, the technology is there, yet, I believe society is not yet ready for this. Especially when this will hit the ego of non-feminist straight men.

Labels. Who needs them?

This week I realised I am genderqueer in addition to being a pansexual. It is an interesting thing that I got my partner’s attention and said “You know what? I am genderqueer!” But why was it such a big deal for me? It doesn’t change anything. It won’t change me. Or will it?

Identity is a powerful thing. You identify yourself as your nationality, as your job, sport, sexual orientation, it is normal to want to identify yourself as something as to be part of something. We are social animals, we don’t survive without a community. People go insane in solitary confinement, people commit suicide when they feel alone even though they are surrounded by people due to being “different”.

We are all different. I grew up with a cisgender bigender society, and yet I didn’t feel part of it. Rather, it made me uncomfortable because I wasn’t like that, and I couldn’t express myself the way I wanted to because 1) I didn’t know why I was frustrated, 2) I was scared. All I knew was you are either a man or a woman and straight, gay or bisexual. But I didn’t fit any of it, so I lived my life as a bisexual woman, even though I didn’t have much in common with “bisexuals” and “women”.

I later discovered the term pansexual, to which I felt more comfortable with. People who are pansexual understand this attraction to all gender identities and sex, while bisexual people don’t feel that. Earlier this week I came across genderqueer, a term that describes people who “move between genders or with a fluctuating gender identity”. I often feel frustration that I cannot wear a nice suit due to my curves, which explains why I hit the gym to get a slimmer posture. I thought it was to lose weight, but I have now realised that it is about getting that body that I am comfortable with and can comfortably wear that black tie suit. Basically getting that “masculine” body type, so that I can easily flow to all my gender identities and be the way I want to be.

Unconsciously you are who you are, but you don’t know what it means. Labels help you with that. It is interesting that in cultures where LGBT people do not exist, people who are LGBT and don’t know it, live lives of confusion and force themselves to fit in the norm that is presented in that culture. With labels you understand yourself a little better, and feel more comfortable – labels exist because many people identify themselves with it, and once you feel like you fit it, you are automatically part of a community – in a psychological way.

Now that I know about the existence of genderqueer, it makes me more comfortable to be who I am and therefore be the way I want to be, and not feeling that I a freak of nature. Yet, I still struggle due to years of telling myself that I should be a certain way. Children are so open and expressive, but when we hit adulthood we have to remove layers and layers of rules and costumes that just make us sick.

What community do you feel like you belong to? Powerful women? Gamer? African Americans? Muslim? You should only choose your identity that makes you comfortable, that helps you understand about your person, about you and your desires. Ignore the labels that make you upset, they obviously are not for you, or they obviously are not you. Identity is a powerful thing – if you find your true identity you are happy, if you find the wrong one, you are miserable.

Same-sex Couples in Ads.

After a conversation with fellow blogger dopechic who commented on my post Zalando and their Sexist Ads, I felt compelled to research a little further on ads featuring same-sex couples. The ads that I found, are so simple, and they are so well done. It is as it should be – just a normal family, not a big deal, whatever.

Get your popcorn ready! Here are a few ads featuring same-sex couples!

Here is a Swedish ad for ICA, Swedish retailer. Their ads are based on 5 characters that work in the store, and the characters and story was created in 2001. They are quite good, and the recent years, one of the characters has down syndrome. Either way, the following ad is in Swedish, but basically this one guys comes out as …. a vegetarian. “My father wasn’t very happy that I am a vegetarian”. The other’s react with “you do whatever you want in your private time”, “don’t be mean, I have many vegetarian friends”. An excellent way to show that these comments sound so ridiculous if you change “gay” to “vegetarian” or “brunette”, because they are!

Interesting though, is that I do not find lesbian couples in ads. It is a bit upsetting. I always felt that, thanks to porn, lesbian couples are very sexualised. You often hear “may I join” from idiots. Is that why they are not often in ads? Either way I will keep looking.

Here is one more as a treat. Get some tissues.

Do you know any other awesome ads? Maybe some featuring lesbian couples? Leave it in the comment bellow!

“Feminism” is wrong

I am a feminist.

Honestly, “feminism” such a terrible word. It is misleading of the true meaning of the word. It is about equal rights, not women’s rights. The misunderstanding of the movement baffles me. The anti-feminist movement is weird and ignorant, and some people that call themselves feminists are idiots.