I ran no less than three errands today that I had been procrastinating for weeks and I feel like I can conquer the world!
Queer as in F*ck You
Queer Beer Fest Celebrates Breweries With LGBTQ+ Leadership And Commitment To The Cause. Hop Culture’s virtual beer festival showcases queer owners and brewers.
The Life and Glamour of Gloria Allen. A new film by Black filmmaker Luchina Fisher on the life of Black trans activist, elder, and icon Gloria Allen.
‘It’s Not Safe’: Parents of Transgender Kids Plan to Flee Their States as GOP Bills Loom
This tip actually came in from an A+ Member: “The Gender-Affirming Letter Access Project is a network of mental health clinicians who pledge to provide free, informed-consent-based letters of support for access to gender-affirming care. It’s really wonderful for reducing that particular barrier to access, especially now when most clinicians are willing to do video visits.”
Two Longtime Friends Making Revolutionary Underwear: Urbody Was Created with Trans People in Mind
Issa Rae’s Raedio Is Releasing a Comedy Album by ‘The Read’ (To quote Shelli Nicole: “Crissle! Our queer queen!” I’m going to keep it real with you, I don’t think I’ve listened to an actual comedy album since I was a teenager and Chris Rock was singing about No Sex in the Champagne Room — I was 15, please do not judge me — but I am SO HYPE FOR THISSSSS!! I just know it’s going to be great!)
Saw This, Thought of You
Caster Semenya: ‘They’re Killing Sport. People Want Extraordinary Performances.’ The South African Olympic champion on her ECHR appeal, her 5,000m ambitions and fighting for other athletes like her in the future.
The U.S. Is Running Out of Excuses Not to Share Its Vaccines With the World. (I don’t believe we had any excuses to begin with in the first place, but abso-fucking-lutely)
Why Burnout Is Hitting Us Now. I don’t know about y’all, but burn out has become REALLLL in my social circles; this couldn’t be more well timed.
Daughters of the Resurrection: For Black Women, “Lemonade” Still Feels Like Home. There are few things that I love and treasure as much as this album. Happy 5th Anniversary to the Bey Hive 🐝💛
The AP Stylebook has updated its guidance on writing about disabilities, and I already learned a lot, so I encourage you all to read it (and some of the first comments in the thread) as well!
The Dark Side of the Houseplant Boom. “American culture is becoming more and more preoccupied with nature. What if all the celebrations of the wild world are actually manifestations of grief?” I am emotionally unprepared to read this.
Political Snacks
“The history of the United States is littered with instances of adult violence against young people of color. In 1955, two white men beat and killed 14-year-old Emmett Till for allegedly flirting with a white woman. (Those two men were charged with murder but acquitted; in 2017, the woman admitted she had lied.) In 1968, 17-year-old Bobby Hutton, a member of the Black Panther Party, was shot to death by police in Oakland. In 2014, the modern Black Lives Matter movement was founded after the police murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Last year, a court ruled that the police officer who shot Brown would not face any charges.
It doesn’t help that mainstream media contributes to the portrayal of Black and brown teenagers as menaces that deserve brutal violence from police. In the aftermath of Brown’s death, the New York Times published a profile that described the unarmed teenager as ‘no angel.’ After 12-year-old Tamir Rice was killed by Cleveland police in 2014, the media fixated on the technicality that Rice was carrying a toy gun at the time of his murder — a fact that becomes particularly twisted in light of recent news that some police departments have admitted their officers have carried around fake guns to plant on people they’ve shot. As recently as this month, the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed cautioning people against ‘turning slain 13-year-old Adam Toledo into a martyr.’
Even when police officers do not use deadly force on Black and brown youth, they still often enact emotional and psychological harm. The video of George Floyd’s murder was originally caught on film by Black Minneapolis resident Darnella Frazier, who was 17 at the time. Since then, Frazier has had to relive Floyd’s death again and again while speaking to the press and at Chauvin’s trial, and she has become a mouthpiece to a movement with millions of eyes on her. Frazier has been credited with being the reason that Chauvin received a guilty charge — but at what cost to her own emotional well-being? ‘It’s been nights I stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life,’ Frazier told the jury in March.”
