The Rainbow Advocate

glsen: Inspiring video of Ellen DeGeneres as part of PBS’s...

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:40:27 -0600

Inspiring video of Ellen DeGeneres as part of PBS’s MAKERS series. Thanks to our friends at Upworthy for sharing!

octopusice: bidyke: [Image: Dark blue/purple grunge...

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 13:54:04 -0600

bidyke:

[Image: Dark blue/purple grunge background. First line text: “Did you know?”. Second line image: 10 people symbols/silhouettes, of which 5.5 are colored pink, and 8 very light pink. Third line text (large): “55% of bisexual people are not out at work”. Fourth line, smaller text: “By contrast, 8% of gay men and 6% of lesbians report not being out at work.” Fifth line: “STOP biphobia and monosexism!”]

This is the sixth in a series of infographics.

Sexual violence

Suicidality

Bullying

Physical health

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Source: Bisexuality and Identity: The Double-Edged Sword: Stonewall Research into Bisexual Experience

Oh my god look at the disparities between the two levels.

gaywrites: Hey. This is important.

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 19:08:08 -0600

gaywrites:

Hey. This is important.

Everything feels different. I love calling him my...

Wed, 01 May 2013 22:48:05 -0600

Everything feels different. I love calling him my “husband.”

gaywrites: Colorado’s civil unions law took effect at midnight...

Wed, 01 May 2013 14:54:57 -0600

gaywrites:

Colorado’s civil unions law took effect at midnight on May 1, and couples from around the state flooded into county clerk offices to celebrate. The first same-sex couple to enter into a union: Fran and Anna Simon, pictured above with their five-year-old son Jeremy.

In tears. Congratulations, all!

My HUSBAND and I are part of history today as well as we too received our Civil Union.

queerability: Among those asked to describe the most important...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 11:12:00 -0600

queerability:

Among those asked to describe the most important problem facing their lives right now:

LGBT youth identified
1. Non-accepting families (26%)
2. School/bullying problems (21%)
3. Fear of being out or open (18%)

Non-LGBT youth identified
1. Classes/exams/grades (25%)
2. College/career (14%)
3. Financial pressures related to college or job (11%)

I talk about this statistic when outreaching to schools on why bullying is an important issue.

Really?

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:41:00 -0600

Yesterday was the most intense outreach trainings ever. Just one person was continually vocal about how being gay was a sin and compared it to being an adulterer, thief and murderer. However, take comfort in this my friends everyone else in that room wanted to reach over and punch her in the face.

Just when you think things are changing....

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:50:13 -0600

Today alone I met a young man who’s brother doesn’t accept him for being transgender, another young man whose father kicked him out of the house for being gay, and another young man who’s dealing with the death of his friend committing suicide who happened to be LGBT. Just when you think things are changing….

That’s what I wrote on my Facebook page after a long day of work on Monday night. The drive home I was infuriated; this still happens.

We see marriage equality being accepted with celebrities and candidates come out to support it like wild fire. However, family rejection and teen suicide are still happening.

With so much happiness and goodness I see from Inside/Out I sometimes forget these things happen, but let’s not forget.

I was infuriated, but this fuels me to ensure Inside/Out is a safe, supportive, understanding and a respectful space for the LGBTIQ youth in our community. I met three young men going through tough times, but I’m glad Inside/Out Youth Services is here for them.

queerability: Image is an infographic: Gender 101 Gender...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:57:34 -0600

queerability:

Image is an infographic:

Gender 101

Gender Binary: The categorization of gender into two distinct, opposite sexes.

Trans*/Transgender: An umbrella term applied to those whose gender identity is not the same as the sex they were assigned at birth.

Cisgender: Someone who is not transgender

Genderqueer: a term applied to individuals who do not identify within the gender binary.

Transition: the process of changing one’s gender expression to match their gender identity.

From Trans Student Equality Resources.

Good News!

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 23:53:00 -0600

My Boss: Eric I have good news!
Me: You won the lottery?!
My Boss: No, even better!
Me: I won the lottery?!

BREAKING: Civil unions pass in Colorado

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 23:45:01 -0600

BREAKING: Civil unions pass in Colorado:

gaywrites:

The Colorado House today passed a bill that would allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions. The bill won final passage 39-26 after passing in the Senate earlier, and it now heads to Gov. John Hickenlooper, who has said he will sign it.

The law is slated to take effect May 1.

The vote punctuates a dramatic political shift in Colorado, where voters approved a gay-marriage ban seven years ago – meaning civil unions are the only option for gay couples in the state for now. That could change with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage bans in the coming months.

“We really do stand on the edge of history,” said Democratic Rep. Pete Lee. “For some in this chamber, this is the reason why we are here.”

YES! VICTORY IN COLORADO!

James Franco Responds To Gay Rumors In Attitude Magazine Interview

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 08:19:35 -0700

James Franco Responds To Gay Rumors In Attitude Magazine Interview:

Why must celebrities be asked if they are straight or gay? What if they are bisexual? How about pansexual? It would make my day for a celebrity to say they are sexually fluid!

Colorado school bans transgender 1st-grader from using girls' restroom; parents speak out Wednesday

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:59:32 -0700

Colorado school bans transgender 1st-grader from using girls' restroom; parents speak out Wednesday :

This is what’s going on in MY community. NOT okay! What a darling little girl.

superqueerartsyblog: ✿ Walking talking queer encyclopedia with...

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:29:29 -0700

superqueerartsyblog:

✿ Walking talking queer encyclopedia with a healthy rose-cheeked smile! ✿

New GLSEN Research Brief Examines LGBT Students in Middle and High School Athletics | GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:29:31 -0700

New GLSEN Research Brief Examines LGBT Students in Middle and High School Athletics | GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network:

qbits:

Among the supporting evidence:

Many LGBT students in school participated in interscholastic sports (23.2%) or intramural sports teams (13.4%), yet LGBT students were about half as likely to play interscholastic sports as their non-LGBT peers (23.2% vs 47.8%).

LGBT student athletes reported higher grade point averages (GPAs) as team members (3.2) and team leaders (3.4) compared to non-athletes (3.0). LGBT student athletes were also more likely to report having higher self-esteem and feelings of belonging to their school.

More than a quarter of LGBT student athletes reported having been harassed or assaulted while playing on a school sports team because of their sexual orientation (27.8%) or gender expression (29.4%).

More than half of LGBT students who took a P.E. class were bullied or harassed during P.E. because of their sexual orientation (52.8%) or gender expression (50.9%).

LGBT students commonly avoided athletic spaces at school including locker rooms (39.0%), P.E. classes (32.5%) and school athletic fields and facilities (22.8%) because of feeling unsafe or uncomfortable.

A vast majority (74.9%) of LGBT students said that they were uncomfortable talking to their P.E. teachers or coaches about LGBT issues. Students who did feel comfortable talking to their P.E. teachers or coaches experienced less discomfort, harassment and assault in athletics than their peers who did not feel comfortable.

thepeoplesrecord: Going beyond the Western gender binary -...

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:58:46 -0700

thepeoplesrecord:

Going beyond the Western gender binary - unlearning our backward cultural conditioning

In Western colonial society (which dominates many aspects of the globalized, capitalist world today) we operate under the presumption that there are only two genders, male and female. But gender is a social construction. One’s options for what gender they identify with are shaped by the culture they are born into. Biological factors are most-often the primary driving forces that choose among the available socially-constructed gender categories.

Cultures around the world have different ways of talking about, thinking about, and identifying gender. It’s often a challenge for (particularly cis-sexual) Westerns to think about other ways gender can be socially constructed. Westerns have the false equivalency of gender and sex drilled into their eternal psyche from the time they are very young, and re-enforced through examples in popular culture. There is no biological reality to gender. Many Westerners have the bizarre belief that one’s XY-sex-determination should also inform one’s gender identity, a socially constructed role in society.

In some cultures, there is no distinction made between gender and sexual orientation and the same can be said for sexual orientation - our culture socially-constructs the options and our biology helps us identify which socially-constructed option feels most ‘right’ and best resonates with us.

I’ve attached some photos to offer some examples of non-colonial, non-Western construction of gender. They’ve all been uploaded onto our Facebook page photostream in case you’d like to ‘like’ or ‘share’ them there. There are literally hundreds of ‘third-gender’ identifying peoples around the world. The eight I’ve chosen are mostly examples I remember from some of my anthropology courses but if you google ‘third genders’ you can find many lists and examples.

Who cares? Why it matters.

The most obvious reason to care about the way our culture has constructed gender and sexual orientation is to deepen one’s capacity for solidarity with people who identify as transgender, transsexual, and others whose gender or sexual identity exists outside of binary Western culture.

But there are other reasons as well. Western culture’s binary nature often creates non-sensical, problematic binary identity constructions that are inherently problematic. For example, I believe that Western masculinity (dominance, aggression, lack of communication, lack of emotional expression, etc) is inherently problematic. I believe that to be the reason why most acts of large-scale-violence and terror are committed by men (see: 100% of the mass school shootings in the United States), and I believe it fosters a degree of internal misery within people who heavily adopt these particular ‘masculine’ traits.

In the age of information, and the age of global connectivity, there is no longer any reason (particularly for young people) to feel isolated or restricted to Western definitions of gender, sexual orientation and identity in general. I think the social ramifications of a generation where more and more people begin to identify outside of the gender binary would be tremendous, and I think we should all consider how we can unlearn our cultural conditioning to embrace other, perhaps less exploitative and dominating identities.

Background information on the identities depicted in the above images:

Hijras
Hijras are male-body-born, feminine-gender-identifying people who live in South Asia (mostly in India & Nepal). Many Hijras live in well-defined, organized, all-Hijra communities, led by a guru.

Although many Hijras identify as Muslim, many practice a form of syncretism that draws on multiple religions; seeing themselves to be neither men nor women, Hijras practice rituals for both men and women.

Hijras belong to a special caste. They are usually devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, Lord Shiva, or both.

Nandi female husbands
Among the Nandi in Western Kenya, one social identity option for women is to become a female husband, and thus a man in society’s eyes. Female husbands are expected to become men and take on all of the social and cultural responsibilities of a man, including finding a wife to marry and passing on property to the next generation through marriage. Female husbands may have lived their lives as women and may even be married to a man, but once she becomes a female-husband, she is expected to be a man. Women married to female-husbands may have sex with single men uninterested in commitment in order to become pregnant, but the female-husband (who is often an older woman, often a widow) will father the child of said pregnancy and treat the child like her own.

Two-spirited people
Two-Spirit is an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as ‘berdaches’, Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations communities. The term usually indicates a person whose body simultaneously manifests both a masculine and a feminine spirit. Male and female two-spirits have been “documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America.”

Travesti
In South America (with a large presence in Brazil), a travesti is a person who was assigned male at birth who has a feminine gender identity and is primarily sexually attracted to masculine men. Therefore, sometimes the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is not made. Travestis have been described as a third gender, but not all see themselves this way. Travestis often will begin taking female hormones and injecting silicone to enlargen their backsides as boys and continue the process into womanhood.

The work of cultural Anthropologist Don Kulick (a gay male by Western definitions) in Brazil demonstrated that gender construction in Brazil is binary (like Western gender construction), but unlike Western gender construction, instead of having a male-female binary, there is a male-notmale binary.

In this particular construction of gender:

Males include: men who have sex with women, men who have sex with Travestis but are never on the receiving end of anal sex, men who have sex with men but are never on the receiving end of anal sex.

Not-males include: women, men who receive anal sex from ‘male’ gay men or from Travestis.

Fa’afafine
Fa’afafine are the gender liminal, or third-gendered people of Samoa. A recognized and integral part of traditional Samoan culture, fa’afafine, born biologically male, embody both male and female gender traits. Their gendered behavior typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to mundanely masculine

Waria
Waria is a traditional third general role found in modern Indonesia. Additionally, the Bugis culture of Sulawesi (one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia) has been described as having three sexes (male, female and intersex) as well as five genders with distinct social roles.

Six Genders of old Israel
In the old Kingdom of Israel (1020–931 BCE) there were six officially recognized genders:

Zachar: male

Nekeveh: female

Androgynos: both male and female

Tumtum: gender neutral/without definite gender

Aylonit: female-to-male transgender people

Saris: male-to-female transgender people (often inaccurately translated as “eunuch”)

Kathoey
Australian scholar of sexual politics in Thailand Peter Jackson’s work indicates that the term “kathoey” was used in pre-modern times to refer to intersexual people, and that the usage changed in the middle of the twentieth century to cover cross-dressing males, to create what is now a gender identity unique to Thailand. Thailand also has three identities related to female-bodied people: Tom, Dee, and heterosexual woman.

-Robert

EDIT: So let me clearly say that in no way am I intentionally encouraging white people (or anyone else) to appropriate these identities. Rather, I hope that this post and conversations like this will lead to an understanding of cultural diversity and other gender constructions/identities and an understanding that there is no biological reality to gender, and that gender manifests itself in many beautiful ways across many cultures.

I AM encouraging people in colonial society to have a less-binary, more nuanced approach to gender that doesn’t lead to so much domination and exploitation.

I also understand that in order to talk about these things, words like ‘male-bodied’ or male are inherently western concepts. Each of these societies and cultures have other ways of talking about these identities. Although I wasn’t born in the U.S. I have spent most of my life and the entirety of my adult life in the United States. I speak no languages other than English. There are concepts that I can’t understand, that my language limits me from even talking about, and in order to communicate these ideas, I am restricted by the only language I have available to talk about these concepts with. My perspective is etic. I do not belong to the above cultures, so when I talk about these things and use the English language to describe them, I am limited in my options for describing a concept as abstract as gender. The very categories of gender and sexuality belong to the cultural lens through which I view the world and I could not possibly provide a comprehensive emic analysis of the way the things we call ‘gender and sexuality’ actually are understood (if at all) within these cultures. In that way, mine is a very limited perspective. But it is geared toward other people living in Western society and it is aimed at changing this culture, not to appropriate these others but to not be so terrible toward gender and sexual variant people in this culture and to begin to question the implications of how we define gender and sexuality both personally, and as a whole culture.

Also, there’s some problematic stuff in the way I framed this and some of these only have one source.

-Robert

WWBD: DC Comics what would Batman do if Robin came out as either...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 13:57:42 -0700

WWBD: DC Comics what would Batman do if Robin came out as either gay, bisexual, or transgender?

NEW BLOG ALERT: FTM Health

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 15:20:07 -0700

NEW BLOG ALERT: FTM Health:

originalplumbing:

Tips on workouts, boosting natural T levels, etc.

thetrevorproject: ellende-generes: Left this for my...

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:24:14 -0700

thetrevorproject:

ellende-generes:

Left this for my parents.

Talk about a great way to break the icing! ;)

A conversation on Scents and Gender

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 11:48:00 -0700

Me: I always wanted to smell like a girl; gummy bears or like a sugar cookie.
Youth: Why don't you?
Me: Okay!