It’s Broccoli Cheddar Soup Night! And I cannot f*cking wait.
Queer as in F*ck You
Elliot Page and Emma Portner Announce Plans to Divorce: We ‘Remain Close Friends.’ The AS editors conferred about this during the afternoon, and we all agreed that Drew had the best take:
Cis celebrities get divorced all the time!! As a future divorced celebrity, please grant me the humanity of having a messed up personal life separate from my transness thank you so much
— Drew Gregory (@draw_gregory) January 26, 2021
With all our hearts, wishing Elliot and Emma peace and privacy at this time.
In a new exhibit, LGBTQ elders share what it was like to spend most of their lives in the closet.
Saw This, Thought of You
Bernie Sanders Turned His Inauguration Meme Into a Sweatshirt for Charity. All proceeds go to Meals on Wheels Vermont.
Andra Day Bares All — Here’s What It Meant To Play Her Icon, Billie Holiday. (Exactly 30 days left until The United States vs. Billie Holiday and I cannot wait!!)
This is old Black ASL that my grandfather still use from 1887 to this day! I loved it! pic.twitter.com/Qb8Z2WrE6T
— It’s Charmay To You (@realcaunsia) October 10, 2020
Charmay has been a GIFT during this last year, and I have learned so much about Black American Sign Language from her: Black, Deaf and Extremely Online
And while we are still on the topic of young, gifted, and Black — did yall see Nia Dennis’ gymnastics floor routine for UCLA that’s gone viral?? Including Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Missy Elliott, Megan thee Stallion, and 2Pac among others.
This is what #blackexcellence looks like. @DennisNia does it again! 🔥
📹 @Pac12Network pic.twitter.com/2vxgyTvUCG
— UCLA Gymnastics (@uclagymnastics) January 24, 2021
If you are white, this is your “must read” of today — and it won’t be easy, but wow I promise you that it is necessary, Breaking Up With White Supremacy Was Always The End Game: “If you follow all the prescriptions of checking your privilege, unpacking your invisible knapsack, centering the marginalized, excavating your deeply held white supremacist notions and not becoming a Karen, you will absolutely positively have to break up with actual white people.”
Related to above, White People Least Likely to Wear Masks Consistently, Study Finds — “The essential values this country was founded on are individualism and personal responsibility, and this idea of community is not something that is necessarily inherent in (white) American culture.” The parenthesis is my own.
Political Snacks
Biden Overturns Trump Ban on Transgender People Serving in U.S. Military. I have A LOT of feelings about the role of the U.S. military and imperialism and war and war profiteering and the military industrial complex. I also acknowledge that the ban itself hurt a lot of trans people who were trying to serve their country, and I hope that those people found some healing in this week.
Also.(also.also), a reminder that Joe Biden Will Lie to You. All presidents do.
But that said, this is a step in the right direction, Biden Orders End of Federally Run Private Prisons. (And yet! To my previous point, Biden’s Order to End Use of Private Prisons Excludes Immigrant Detention Facilities)
And Another Thing!
Crissle West coming thru with the laughs for your mid-week slump:
antonio asked me if i had any hobbies pic.twitter.com/7YSsgeuVPH
— king crissle (@crissles) January 23, 2021
Grateful for Drew’s input on the Page-Portner divorce! Also yeah maybe the issue has less to do with Elliot’s transition and more to do with Emma Portner being like 21 when they got married?? I know we as a community commit fast but…
“Then again, look at those magnificent muscles. You’re probably a top-tier dykin pro.”
i do not know what our meme is, but for all you other mid-level dykin professionals out there, hello.
If Mackenzie Davis is the top tier, then I have you mid-tier also covered.
so, the presence or lack of sleeves is an indicator? then gloves would be the logical progression of a substandard professional, … but wait! Carol Aird must be like instructor-level, so that CAN’T be it.
amen to all of this!
re white ppl breaking up with white supremacy, I was looking thru my old drawings last night. in 2015 I wrote to myself ‘all they [white supremacist men] offer is money and conditional safety. that’s so much less than being my full self and freedom.’ although unwinding myself from white supremacy as a white passing person is never done, absolutely cannot recommend it enough. every time I choose being accountable to people of color, I find new ways white supremacy has cheated me of taking full responsibility for myself and my relationships, and the real beautiful project of living life in this astonishing web of creation.
Seems like all my trans friends seem to have jumped to the conclusion of transition as the reason for Elliot’s divorce. I don’t think it’s a “shitty assumption” to THINK that, because so many of experienced it. I was dumped when I came out to my spouse, literally at that moment. It burned a hole in my soul. Of my close knit group of half a dozen trans women, every single one of us experienced break-up/divorce as a result of our transitions. And it is really really hard to not frame the world in the context of that experience.
But I do agree with Drew! It’s one thing to think something like that. But use your brain and don’t tweet the first thing that you think of. Cause that often is driven by bias.
very sorry to read that was your experience.
if i may suggest, there’s room for both your and Drew’s perspectives as people all internalize news like this in their own way. Elliot Page’s travels really cover the lgbtqia spectrum in a consequential way. i don’t know what prompted the tweet, but i suspect a good many cis people could use the reminder to avoid jumping to conclusions when we should just sit quietly.
hoping that they are both ok.
I think you are right- both/and. I actually had a similar but different experience in the past as a cis partner of a trans person – they ended the years-long relationship shortly after they came out as trans. I imagine it is not uncommon for transition to change how you look at the world or hormones to change who you’re attracted to. Transition is also necessarily, and not in a negative way, a time to be self-centered and that doesn’t always help a relationship thrive. Who knows what went on in their lives but yeah, I do feel like jumping to this conclusion lines up with the experiences of trans folks and those who have been in relationships with them prior to their coming out.
Nia Dennis! <3
It’s worth noting that Emma Portner is not necessarily cis. I follow them as a dancer and they’re using she/they pronouns as of this moment.
The article on breaking up with white supremacy is a very welcome perspective. One thing I struggle with (and just to clarify, I’m not putting this out there as a question requiring anyone’s labour to answer—I’m just musing on my own experiences) is finding the line between sticking around in the hopes of making certain people finally understand a different perspective, or cutting ties because I’m just wasting time and energy that could be better spent focusing on more productive actions. I’ve had several ex-friends and family members block me in recent months because I tried to push them to examine their biases, and I’ve spent a lot of time feeling bad about how I handled those conversations and wondering if I should have tried different tactics. But maybe I need to accept that the outcomes were ultimately inevitable with those particular individuals.
On the subject of safety vs identity, I do think that safety is actually still a relevant factor here, even if outwardly people seem to be in a relatively secure financial or social position. We’re all hardwired as social beings to seek safety through connections with others, regardless of our circumstances, and breaking down those connections feels threatening to our survival even if rationally it isn’t. Particularly for anyone with attachment trauma, this can actually be quite a triggering experience. I really believe that this needs to be reckoned with in understanding the dynamics of why people will often close ranks even if it means compromising their own personal ethics.
i meant my comment below to be a reply to yours, Chandra. i was thinking about what to do when confronted with people you know who are bigots. i live among fairly liberal folks, so i don’t encounter it personally that much, but maybe it’s tangentially relevant.
It is definitely relevant. All of the instances above took place over social media, with people I used to go to high school with or extended family members in England. I find it much, much easier to engage in these dialogues online than in person. The people I interact with in person also mostly lean more left, but I live in a very conservative very white town, so I do overhear things in public sometimes and I know I need better tools for how to deal with that.
The trickiest interactions though aren’t even the ones with overt bigots, it’s the ones where deep-seated biases are buried under layers of obfuscation and mental gymnastics, where you know that what they’re saying sounds wrong but it takes too much time to process it and figure out how to respond.
i think white people need to admit that we haven’t done the best we could. it feels big to fix the whole, so we console ourselves that we don’t personally think/behave in racist ways so we aren’t part of the problem. but systemically things don’t workout by accident. i have two examples.
back in the aughts i was hanging out with a couple of guys i had been volunteering with for ~6 months and they were both likable. the white guy made a derogatory comment referring to Jews and money and i was so stunned that i just stood there staring. our African-american colleague took a beat and then said, “not how i would put it” and gave a chagrined smile. then he took the conversation in a different direction and we all moved on. i can’t remember what was going through my mind, except that pretty quickly i realized that i’d left that work to a person of color. he and i became friends and i let him know that i saw how i fell short that day.
in April, i was leaving the super market and a young black man, likely lgbtqia, was politely asking folks for cash; he moved on easily when people said no. then this older white guy and he were yelling across the parking lot at each other. the white guy walked away from his wife and groceries toward the young man and it felt threatening. the young guy stood his ground. i ran over and stood close-ish to the young man, but neither of them were wearing masks and they were still yelling. i was pleading with them to let it go, to protect themselves. finally a store clerk (a young white guy) came out and separated them more. i hung around out of the way until it was over. old guy drove away and the young guy was walking away. the store managers came out asking the clerk what was going on. the clerk, who’s been polite and helpful to every customer i’ve seen him with, said the young man had been hassling patrons but he took care of it. i jumped in and told them what i had seen – the young man was polite and hadn’t been causing any problems, then the old guy started shouting racist bs. they asked a couple more questions and then went inside. i couldn’t see the young guy any more so i split.
individually, maybe we can’t be perfect, but there’s always going to be a chance to help. i’m trying to remember to stand next to the people who face trouble because they don’t have the shield of being white/straight/cis.
meant to add, i mention these events to white people i know because it might give ideas about how to be better at helping. i read about a woman who saw another woman being harassed on public transit because she was Muslim. she went and sat to next to her, and the guy walked away once they were two. it’s how i thought about standing next to the young man mentioned above.
Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
is a super helpful resource for ppl like me who ‘freeze’
in the moment as a bystander – it’s a somatics approach to rewiring how we navigate – https://www.blackstonebookstore.com/book/9781942094470 (noting there’s more proactive action to do as well)
super interested in this, thanks @devney!
yay :)
Oh good to know, thank you! I’m definitely prone to the freeze response in person as well.
SURJ also runs a call-in workshop and practice sessions for white people to practice calling people in. Hollaback! has solid workshops on bystander intervention, some specific to racist incidents.