Category Archives: LGBTQ

Essay, LGBTQ

MY VOICE IS MY VOICE

A few weeks ago I was hosting my sister and her friends at my apartment. Cram five queens into a three-by-three-foot box, and it’s pretty hectic. But whatever, it was fun and they bought me Patron (the toilet Patron from “ONE-TWO-THREE”!) as a thank-you present. On Saturday, when they were heading out to da club and I was heading to a house party, one of my sister’s friends brought over a friend from the area.

He walked in and my high-school-heart beat a little bit faster. He was just like every frat boy-wannabe I went to high school with (an all-boys Catholic prep school)—non-psycho American Psycho hot face, slicked back long hair, Oxford shirt buttoned tightly over lacrosse muscles, canoe-like leather shoes and blue jeans. Yung Wall Street.

And when I introduced myself to him, it wasn’t me. It was a strong, firm handshake and a voice that was like mine, but several octaves lower and controlled. “Hey, I’m Danny,” he/me said.

It’s a voice I pulled out a lot that weekend as I met my sister and her friends’ straight guy friends. That afternoon, I was downtown and I got out of my car. “What’s on your sweatshirt?” said-shouted a straight guy on line outside the bar I was going to. I looked down. I had pulled on a cross country hoodie from my sophomore year of high school, underneath an olive-green bomber jacket.

I shifted my jacket and showed him. “Fuckboy Prep,” he said (name has been changed, because duh). “Yeah, do you know it?” I asked, my voice hitched in the bottom of my throat, my vowels pitching backward into my esophagus.

It’s difficult to describe the “straight” voice, but it’s like that: instead of projecting forward, the words make a boomerang: out from the bottom of my throat, below my Adam’s apple, jut forward and then careen back into my collarbone.

“No, but I went to Yung Money Prep in Maine,” he said. We nodded at each other. End of conversation.

It’s a voice that I unearthed from the deepest recesses of my early tweenhood. Monotone, soft, deep. A voice I had discarded when I came out at fifteen and, shaky in my gayness, hurtled towards the opposite end of the scale and went full “Agaytha Christie.” What a gay joke. Neither were my actual voice, which is decidedly average and can veer equally into deep monotone and higher-pitched modulation.

It’s something I do when I’m meeting straight guys for the first time. I drag my voice back into low-pitched “sups” and “yo.”

I do it for a few reasons: I want to be taken seriously by another man, and I want to survive.

“Survive” sounds so extra, but let me remind you—I went to an all-boys Catholic high school where I was already harassed enough. Lowering my voice into a monotone was at least one attempt on my end to make myself seem like less of a target.

I have one vivid memory of sitting at a lunch table at fourteen. I was saying something when across the table, a mean hot redhead said to me, in brusque masculine tones,

“Talk like a boy.”

This was before I came out, so I was vibrating with anxiety about being “found out.” I couldn’t respond to him, so I picked up my tray, shakily threw out my trash and hid in the library. In the moment, I was doused in ice-water dread. Later, I would feel a coiled mixture of revulsion and attraction to him. Revulsion that he could embarrass me with four words, and attraction to him and his masculinity.

Because that’s what it comes down. We as queer boys are taught to hate our femininity and strive towards masculine attributes. It might be why gay guys work out so hard at the gym, sculpting Adonis bodies and artfully manicured scruff. Why we put “masc for masc” on our Grindr profiles. We eschew femmes and shame bottoms because we never, ever want to be put in that vulnerable position again.

So instead of living our truth, we shut it off and hate it. We fight against it. We slit the throat of our femininity and let it drop to the floor, a sick survivalist instinct to protect ourselves in a masculine, heteronormative world.

But in that “passing” is a hidden desire uncomfortable to admit: that part of passing for straight is not just out of a survivalist instinct, but undeniable envy.

I would imagine that queer people have thought about it; some of us have the ability to pass as straight in a heteronormative society. To not appear different or othered. It’s a dangerous thing because it’s a temptation to step outside of your marginalized group.

In a day-to-day scenario, it’s easier being straight than it is gay. When I’m walking late at night, with a female friend and we come across a group of straight guys, I put my arm around her, or I move closer. We both tacitly understand that those guys won’t respect a woman not wanting to talk to them, but they will respect a boyfriend because there is the notion of women as property.

And as much as it is a protection against catcalling for her, it provides me with a dangerous taste of heteronormativity. It provides me a glimpse of the luxury, respect and authority that being a straight white male awards you. The ability to express physical affection without wondering if it could get you gay-bashed. The respect given to you by straight men who don’t see you as Othered or predatory or sissy.

In a lot of ways, when I lower my voice, I’m still that skinny little kid who wants to impress straight boys. Look how manly I can be! Hear how low my voice can go!

It’s a muscle-memory reaction, a hit of fight-or-flight adrenaline, and it’s something that complicates me even now. It complicates my relationship to my sexuality because for so long, I have been taught to hate it. And when that didn’t do anything, I moved on to hating myself. And others. And everyone.

It’s easy to forget, six years on, that I have been irreparably damaged by the strain, stress and assault of living in the closet for fifteen years. And it’s easy to forget that that strain and stress does not disappear when you come out. That the reason I dress more plainly and simply now is a way to avoid being labeled as flamboyant. That I keep my hair messy to not seem prissy. That the reason I like mean guys is because in the hidden depths of me, meanness is associated with masculinity, and thus, idolization.

There is damage in having been Othered. There is damage in hating a part of you because society has deemed that part to be malignant.

But there is power in reclaiming that damage. I started wearing nail polish recently. And even that small bit of femininity has eased me a little. Because I am a feminine person in some ways. And in just as many ways, I am also masculine. Everyone is masculine and feminine; labeling or coding one as negative only serves to incur further damage.

My voice rings up high when I’m excited. I talk fast. I use my hands a lot. I’m expressive. These are just descriptors. They’re not bad or good, they just exist. My voice is my voice.

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Essay, LGBTQ, Life

“WHAT KIND OF GAY ARE YOU? CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!”

I took a “What Kind of Gay Are You?” quiz because, in a world that is rapidly changing and mutating, I needed at least one answer in my life.

That sounds dramatic, but that’s only because it is. So you’re astute. Congrats, hon.

It was a slushy snow day. We were huddled around a tall Starbucks table, damply drying off and cradling inappropriate iced coffees in between our hands. It might be winter outside, but my sweat glands knew no season.

I was taking a “What Kind of Gay Are You” quiz on my phone, because—frankly—I needed to know. After selecting one that seemed thorough—I didn’t want your run-of-the-mill quiz; I wanted a deep dive—I started checking boxes.

The problem, if it’s a problem even, and the reason for this erudite season is that my body exceeds gay boundaries. I’m tall and rangy—thirty pounds and three inches ago I might’ve been a twink. But as I stretched upward, the hours at the gym making me dense with muscle and bone, it became a lot more difficult.

I couldn’t find a physical category that seemed to fit. I’m not stocky enough to be a bear; not hairy enough to be an otter; neither hairy nor muscular enough to be a wolf; not effete enough to be a twink; too big to be a twunk; not geeky enough to be a gaymer. I could go on; I won’t.

Jock. Pup. Gym Bunny. Cub. Silver fox. (Just kidding; I went on).

Nope. Nope. No. Nope. No.

You might think that with as many categories as that, finding a niche would be easy—or at least possible. But instead my long, lean body—toned but not muscular, solid but not stocky—spills over any box, muddying the distinctions. I wanted some answer that might offer me a semblance of geace™ (gay peace).

So this outside, impartial source took in my body weight, my height, my musculature, my style, my activities, the timbre of my voice—average but deceptive because the pitch wildly vacillates based on whatever mood I’m in. But before I could get my answer, it produced the dreaded text:

Register an account to find out your answer!

“Fuck that,” I said, finding a small button at the bottom:

Proceed without account

I clicked it and the small circle at the top of the screen spun. The same screen popped up again. Clicked again. But every attempt to click the button led to a Sisyphean cycle of reloading that same page.

Eventually, I had to give up. I’m not made of steel—I rarely put energy into anything that isn’t writing, Real Housewives, or grilled cheese—and my phone battery can only withstand so much blunt trauma.

But I was disappointed—much more disappointed than I realized I would be, and more disappointed than I think anyone should be about any Internet quiz.

Would this one Internet quiz have changed my life? No. Would I be able to order a custom license plate with my assigned tribe and be inundated with romantic pursuits? Likely no but one can dream. It’s not like each category requires you to pay dues, or offers you any networking possibilities. There’s no “Bears In Media” except for Smokey. The only thing that’s likely is that I would’ve been disappointed with any answer.

But still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would’ve been nice to have at least one answer in a life that seems to hold very little for me right now. Days later, I was having a conversation with classmates about baby names. I really like the name Betty, spelled Bettie. One classmate offered up “Bette” as also being cute.

“But then people will always wonder what kind of gay I am,” I argued. “Am I a Bette Davis gay or a Bette Midler gay? ‘Cause that’ll affect how people try to pronounce her name.”

As I’ve been applying to more jobs, I’ve been in stasis, uncomfortably but evenly pulled between my Imposter Syndrome and my inescapable anxiety about being jobless.

The former tries to stop me from submitting my application, and the latter reminds me that if I don’t do this, my future remains as cloudy and voided as it currently is. So I remain largely in the middle, occasionally jolted into movement by a particularly strong wave from either end. My limbs—those rangy long limbs—are pulled to their full extension, tendons popping and bones straining at the joints.

I’m in a drawn-and-quartered life crisis.

Too tall to be a twink, too slim to be a jock. Too lively to be the reporter I’m training to be. Too timid to be an opinion writer. Too dumb to be a genius, too smart to be an idiot. Too cocky for my own good, too self-conscious for my own health. Too good in too many things, not good enough in one thing. Perfectly at the center of so many identities, sticky strands of confliction pulling at so many different parts of me.

Everything is up in the air. On social media, all I see are these static pictures of people in their things. The red-carpet one. The photographer one. The writer one. The engineer one. Steel. Silk. Definitive things. Not some thing, but this thing. Do I go for this or for that? Do I put all my energy into one path, or do I spread my eggs like it’s Easter Sunday?

I want answers to questions that haven’t even fully formed yet. For the first time in 21 years, my life is opaque. And the more people I talk to, the more common I realize that feeling is. So I might not be a thing one, but I’m not the only one.

I closed the tab of the “What Kind of Gay Are You?” quiz, quick darkness swallowing the cartoon drawing of a jock intertwined with a twink. I didn’t really feel like a twink or a jock. Or a bear or an otter or a silver fox or an otter.

I really only felt like myself.

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LGBTQ, Politics

MEAN

Trans Lifeline

On Wednesday night, the Trump administration withdrew Obama-era advisement that schools that received federal funding allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that corresponds with their gender identity.

The measure was a joint effort by the Departments of Justice and Education, the heads of which are Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary Betsy DeVos, respectively. According to insider Republicans, DeVos was against rescinding Obama’s protections but eventually bowed to the combined pressure of President Trump and Attorney General Sessions.

President Obama made his guidance based on his interpretation of Title IX, which bans discrimination in schools on the basis of sex. In Trump’s letter to federally-funded public schools, there was no new guidance on how to handle the issue but simply stated that there was not “extensive legal analysis” on Obama’s interpretation of Title IX and retracted the advisement.

In a statement, the White House said that the issue should be left at the state-level for decisions. The letter comes weeks before the case of Gavin Grimm, a transgender student from Virginia who was denied access to the boys’ bathroom in his high school and had to use the bathroom in a converted janitor’s closet, would reach the Supreme Court.

As a senator, Jeff Sessions had a record of voting against the expansion of LGBTQ rights. In 2000 and 2002, Sessions voted against including sexual orientation in the definition of hate crimes. In 2006, he voted yes on a constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. DeVos, according to several sources, was privately pro-LGBTQ rights but has not publicly voiced support to avoid going against her family, who have contributed financially to several anti-gay groups.

I had actually written an article about the possibility of Trump rescinding federal protection of transgender students a few hours before the official word came. I looked at the voting records of Sessions and Pence in their political careers. I looked at the promises Trump made during the campaign, saying that he was the LGBTQ community’s best option.

I looked at the effects bathroom bans have on transgender students. According to data, LGBTQ youths are four times more likely than their heterosexual peers to attempt suicide. 40 percent of transgender adults have attempted suicide, and 92 percent have attempted it before the age of 25. According to a survey, when transgender youths are denied access to places like bathrooms and housing, suicide attempts spike. Out of over 1000 youths surveyed for a particular study, a third had been denied access to bathrooms—60.5 percent of those denied access have attempted suicide.

Bathroom bills are purportedly for the safety of cisgender (that is, non-transgender) students. There are no reported instances of any transgender person assaulting a cisgender person in the bathroom. However, over 70 percent of transgender people have experienced being barred from using a bathroom, verbally assaulted or physically assaulted. Transgender students who are denied access to bathrooms that correspond to their gender identities have reported health issues such as kidney infection, dehydration and urinary tract infections. Those health issues can lead to missed classes and days of school.

Villainizing queer people is nothing new. Gay men were characterized as pedophiles, and homosexuality was only declassified as a mental illness from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973. Prior to 2003, same-sex sexual activity illegal in 14 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and the military.

Rescinding the protection of transgender students goes beyond name-calling or petty villainizing. It condemns them to health problems, physical and verbal assault and suicide. It condemns them to death.

There aren’t many ways I’m able to process this. I can use facts and statistics to paint a picture of why this is wrong. I can look into the voting records of Sessions and Pence and the ilk. I can point to those things and say, “Do you see? Can’t you see?” But this reaches a place deeper down in me, someplace raw and unhealed.

There are no words that encompass the illness roiling around inside me. The abject cruelty. The first time I was called “faggot.” The red heat in my cheeks as I was harassed in my high school locker room. The shoves into the lockers. The cruel, fondling hands. There are no words to describe being treated as subhuman. Because that’s what it comes down to: they don’t see queer people as human. You can’t rationalize it as any other way.

It’s mean. I guess that’s the simplest way I can break it down. The most juvenile, childish word, but the one that makes the most sense. It’s mean. It’s mean because it makes no sense; it comes from no logic, no wisdom, no statistics, no facts. Because if you look at any of those, you would realize that transgender students are amongst the most vulnerable minorities in America. At every turn, they are scorned, harassed and maligned. They are treated as subhuman. We should be offering our protection to them, not protecting against them.

It’s mean because Jeff Sessions doesn’t actually care about protecting cisgender students. He knows that there is no threat that a transgender teen poses when they’re just trying to use the bathroom. But Jeff Sessions wants to curtail the expansion of LGBTQ rights. That’s the logic I can find—in his voting records. In the way he views us. It’s mean because Trump, no matter what he said on the campaign trail, is as bad as Sessions in his ambivalence. And ambivalence is as deadly as hate because it’s still the same victim mangled in the maws of government. It’s still that teen. That teen is who asking nothing more than the barest, most threadbare human dignity.

“These bills are not about bathrooms. They’re about whether trans people have the right to exist in public space.”

-Laverne Cox on her recent CBS This Morning appearance.

Also published on The Buzz website 

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LGBTQ, Politics

ACCORDING TO SOURCES, TRUMP TO RESCIND FEDERAL GUIDANCE ON TRANSGENDER STUDENTS USING BATHROOMS OF THEIR GENDER IDENTITIES

According to reporting done by the New York Times, the Trump administration is drawing up paperwork to rescind former President Obama’s order that transgender students can use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was in opposition to Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the issue of leaving the choice up to the states. However, the Department of Education ruled in 2014 that protecting transgender students falls under Title IX, a federal law that prevents discrimination on the basis of sex.

DeVos, despite her family’s prominent donations to anti-gay organizations, apparently opposed the order. However, President Donald Trump sided with Sessions, who has a history of opposing the expansion of LGBTQ rights, and wanted DeVos to drop her objections.

Apparently there is pressure to move the paperwork along so as to avoid confusion with upcoming cases. The issue comes right before the case of Gavin Grimm, a Virginia boy who is transgender, will be brought to the Supreme Court. Grimm sued his school county when they refused to let him use the boys’ restroom and instead offered him a separate one converted from a janitor’s closet. The Obama White House rejected accommodation like that as unconstitutional and discriminatory.

According to insider Republicans, DeVos was uncomfortable with the idea of revoking protections for transgender students. This is in direct opposition to what Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a White House news conference that DeVos was “100 percent” on board. And apparently privately, according to several sources, DeVos is quietly pro-gay-rights.

This directive needs the joint support of the Education and Justice Department, meaning that Sessions needed DeVos on board to move forward.

According to the website, OnTheIssues.org, Sessions has a history of voting against LGBTQ rights expansion. In 2006, he voted yes on a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, limiting the definition for marriage to between one man and one woman. In 2000 and 2002, he voted against adding sexual orientation to the definition of hate crimes. He was rated 20% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record, and 0% by the HRC, indicating an anti-gay-rights stance.

On the campaign, Trump was tentatively pro-LGBTQ rights. He said that the issue of same-sex marriage was settled when it was legalized and that he would not go back on that. He famously invited Caitlyn Jenner, transgender former Olympic athlete, to Trump Tower and that she could use whichever bathroom she wanted. In April of 2016, Trump spoke against North Carolina’s bathroom ban, saying that people should use “the bathroom they feel is appropriate.” However, when the Obama administration issued guidance that all transgender students should use the bathrooms corresponding to their gender identities, Trump said that it should be left up to the states.

Vice President Pence, when he was the governor of Indiana, signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which protected business owners who discriminated against LGBTQ people on the basis of religion. Pence was also critical of Obama’s repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” saying without it, the military would be a “backdrop for social experimentation.”

Even if Trump himself doesn’t personally hold any opposition to the expansion of LGBTQ rights, by dropping down the impetus to the states to decide what protections to offer transgender students is deeply troubling. These are children who are just trying to go to school. When transgender students are barred from using the bathrooms that correspond to their gender identities, suicide rates increase and health issues arise—dehydration, kidney infections and urinary tract infections. The health problems alone can lead to missed days of school and increased levels of stress.

That Trump himself doesn’t bear any ill will against the queer community does not translate to protection of LGBTQ rights. He totes himself as “the least anti-Semitic person you’ll ever meet” and “the least racist person you’ll ever meet” but if you’re not taking active steps towards the protections of these marginalized groups, you are in effect leaving them to be crushed under administrative oppression and discrimination.

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LGBTQ, television

THE GAY-FOR-PAY PROBLEM ON CW’S RIVERDALE

Adapted from a column written for class. 

If you watch bad television enough, you begin to realize that hot people are all hot in the same way. And if you watch bad young-adult television enough, you begin to realize that all hot gay guys on television tend to look exactly the same. They just cloning the same beautiful people over and over again—Brave New World-style.

CW’s Riverdale is a dark, sultry teen-thriller interpretation of the Archie comics. The show mixes the idealistic setting of the comic, which began issue in 1942, with weird, neon sex appeal. The show carried onto screen Kevin Keller, the first openly gay character in the comic. It was a breakthrough in the comic and it was a breakthrough on screen—in pre-premiere interviews, the cast prized the character Kevin as “more than” a gay best friend, sassy sidekick or comic relief. He would have a storyline, nuance and depth. Great.

On screen, Kevin Keller is played by Casey Cott. When I first saw him, I thought Cott looked familiar: gorgeous in the Ken Doll, teen drama kind of way. Full lips, chiseled jaw, dark hair parted severely. But then I realized that he just looked like every hot twentysomething playing a fourteen-year-old on TV, and I assumed that the actor was gay. I assumed Cott was gay because…I just did. I had no reason to not to.

I followed him on Instagram because I’m a masochist and love to torture myself with photos of more attractive, more successful gays. I saw that he had posted a ton of photos with his cast members. That’s how they’re marketing themselves: best buddies—two straws, one milkshake kind of buddies.

Side bar: I’m not close enough with anyone to split a milkshake with them. And I’m not friends with anyone stupid enough to try.

One blonde girl kept popping up in every photo who wasn’t a cast member. It would be him in a close-fitting fedora (very LA), leading man KJ Apa (Archie Andrews), and Blonde Girl. Him, co-star Madelaine Petsch (Cheryl Blossom), and Blonde Girl. Blonde Girl everywhere. I thought she was a close friend, a far-distant E-list celebrity/YouTube star/model who was hitching her wagon to his. I accepted that explanation because I know when I become famous, I’m going to drag some of my friends into stardom with me. Everyone needs personal assistants, amiright?

Curious after seeing her multiple times, I clicked on her tag and went to her profile. Her curation of photos was much more deliberately of him and sans the Riverdale cast. Her and Casey Cott on set. Her and Casey getting coffee. Casey and her dog, playing together. The pieces began to fall together and the truth was confirmed with her caption under the photo of Casey and the dog.

“PSA: Your dog will steal your man.”

They were dating; this groundbreaking historic gay character was being played by another straight guy.

It shouldn’t matter—but it does.

On the show, Casey toed the line of playing to the stereotype and then subverting it when playing Kevin. I mean, they ended the first episode with Kevin going to hook up with a closeted football player on the riverbank and finding Jason Blossom’s dead body. So when Kevin was overplaying the flamboyance and I thought the actor was gay, I accepted it.

Part of Riverdale’s charm is indulging stereotypes only to discard them. The classic trope of Archie as a jock torn between music and sports is dragged up tiredly, only to be tossed aside when Veronica Lodge asked, “Can’t we, in this post-James Franco world, just be all things at once?” And so I assumed that’s what they were doing with Kevin—trying to by cheeky. They were saying, “Hey, you know we don’t actually think gay people act like this—we’re chiller than that.”

I took it as ironically challenging the stereotype; of toying with expectations until he was given a deeper storyline. But even if Kevin Keller gets a great storyline later on, a part of me will forever be salty.

It was revolutionary to have a gay character introduced into the canon of a comic series that began in 1942. It’s not revolutionary to have a straight guy playing gay on screen, no matter how much winking accompanies the bitchy rapport. It invokes the very damaging idea of “gay for pay” (an entire OTHER article that I need time to unpack), that the most attractive thing for a gay guy to aspire towards is actually heterosexuality. 

Riverdale marketed itself as sexy, bold and risk-taking. It made the conscious effort to be “woke.” The character of Josie—of the Pussycats—is played by Ashleigh Murray, a woman of color. Cole Sprouse made the comment that he hopes his character, Jughead Jones, is portrayed as asexual. (Thank you?)

But the fact that the only gay character, in a line-up of actors so bland you could bag them as Wonder Bread and sell them for sandwiches, is played by a straight person undercuts any progress they think they’ve made. Because the acting choices Cott made when I thought he was gay turn from satirical to patronizing.

There’s the argument that the actor was simply the best person for the role. And maybe that’s true, but there were definitely gay, bisexual and queer actors who auditioned for the part. Actors who were probably handsome in the exact same way as Casey Cott, with the same full lips and dark, severely parted hair. Actors who do not have the advantage, unlike Cott, of oftentimes playing the reverse. Straight actors can play gay roles, and are often congratulated for them, but the opposite is hardly ever the case.

The easiest question is “Why not?”

Why not go the extra mile and find someone who is actually representative of the progress you are so proudly claiming? If it was a priority to honor the character of Kevin by bringing him to the screen, why was it not a priority to honor the character by finding him a gay actor? Because it’s 2017 and if you’re going to be resting on the laurels of progressiveness, you should be progressive in every aspect.

It shouldn’t matter, and maybe it won’t eventually, but it does right now. We as a community have fought for too long for half as much. And it might be childish to invoke the struggles of the community when discussing a CW show. But it’s what that CW show stands for. Honor our stories and our identities by giving work to someone who can tell that story. The problem is not that Casey Cott isn’t a great actor, or that he portrays the character well. It’s that there was a queer actor who probably could’ve done the role just as well. We shouldn’t accept whatever portrayals we can get. We shouldn’t accept the minimum. That’s not fair. And that’s not right.

Will I still watch the show? Yes—I’m hooked. Will I still recap it? Yes. But this was also bugging me, and I needed to figure out why.

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LGBTQ, Politics

THE INDOMITABLE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN RESISTANCE

According to an article on LGBTQ Nation, President Donald ‘The Don’ Trump could be signing an executive order opening up discrimination against LGBTQ people very soon, possibly this week, possibly this moment. Actually, maybe do a quick Google search to see if it’s already happened. The order would allow for discrimination in employment, social services, and adoption. Yay!

Trump already signed in several other executive orders, some of his Greatest Hits™ disbanding the refugee program for several months and putting a ban on nationals from several Muslim-dominated country entering the U.S. for the foreseeable future.

The country has, thankfully, responded appropriately towards what is aptly being called the Muslim Ban. Trump signed the executive order Friday afternoon, with it going hastily into effect. By Saturday, people were occupying airports, and on Sunday, a protest gathered in Boston’s Copley Square. People are rising up to the occasion and fighting back against discrimination. Because immigration makes us stronger, not weaker.

So if Trump does sign into effect an anti-LGBTQ executive order, I know that people will rise up similarly and fight alongside the queer community. Because signing in these orders that divide and discriminate weaken us, rather than protect us.

I think what I find so repugnant and odd is that Trump made a concentrated effort post-campaign to be all “I’m gonna create jobs” but all he’s done so far is just ostracize the press, alienate voters, destroy relations with other countries and, the latest, try to block immigration flow.

Maybe just focus on the jobs, and leave the rest of us alone?

And even though I don’t want Trump to sign anything against queer people (because I like having rights, ya know? I’m so random like that), I almost, in the darkest, most macabre parts of my soul, want to know how people will react. I want people to fire back, to get louder and angrier. But I also know that fire kills no matter what direction it leans, and so I hope that we can avoid the whole thing, but I know that’s exemplary of my privilege and that I’m allowed to hope that it doesn’t happen.

An NBC article tied together LGBTQ and the immigration ban by pointing out that many LGBTQ immigrants leaving the banned countries—Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya—are fleeing countries that have criminalized homosexuality. Sudan, Iran and Yemen punish homosexuality with death; Libya, Syria and Somalia punish homosexuality with up to ten years in prison; and Iraq has witnessed killing sprees of people perceived to be queer but have never held someone responsible. By locking the borders, Trump is essentially sentencing them to death.

And that intersectionality, that queer people across the entire globe, stand to be affected negatively by Donald Trump really puts me into perspective. I am from a liberal state, from a liberal family, from a liberal university. In the grand scheme of things, I am pretty much as privileged as you can get. So this executive order will affect me, but it could ruin other people’s lives. We could be going backwards, deeply backwards, where our identities become the biggest targets on our backs.

I refuse to be cowed. I refuse to be afraid. If Trump does sign an executive order, I will fight him. I won’t be quiet, I won’t be ignorant.

There is something uncrushable in the spirit of America, and we’ve been seeing it rise up in the past week-and-a-half (only a week and a half, omg). These marches and protests speak to the fact that at our core, we care about democracy, we care about each other. Trump may try to divide us, belittle us, demean us, hurt us. But he can’t dampen our spirits, because that is our soul. Our. Soul. United, one, together.

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LGBTQ, Life, Love & Romance, Rambles

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO DO WHAT YOU WANT?

No, seriously, what does it mean?

I think that there’s a difference between “doing what you want” and “getting what you want.” That’s a difference that has evaded me for a while, because when things didn’t go my way, I felt dejected. But that’s passivity, waiting for something to happen to you. But doing what you want, that’s active. That’s bold as shit.

I was listening to a podcast last night as I drifted into a sleep where I dreamt the apocalypse was occurring—weirdly, this is a scenario I dream about a lot, and in my dreams, I last a lot longer than I think I would in real life—and the podcast was taking about the idea of “manifestation.” It’s like the Secret, but a little less Wiccan and a little more realistic. No shade 2 Wicca.

But they were talking about manifestation and how setting positive, strong goals in your life sets you on a path towards making active choices and seeing those goals “manifest” in your life. You might want a boyfriend—that would be a manifest. Eh? I don’t know if I believe in manifestation, but I do believe there is something in active thinking.

Now, doing what you want comes in degrees. Totally doing what you want is something we like to call “dictatorship.” Not a good look. But doing what you want, making active and positive choices means that you’re not stalin your life. Get it? Stalin? Stalling? I’ll leave. No, you stay—I’ll go.

There are people who I hate, people who seem to have everything going right in their lives. They’re the ones standing at the podium, accepting the Pulitzer Prize, and I’m the one in the audience, making the jerkoff motion and rolling my eyes. To each their own. But maybe it’s less about the fact that they are “lucky” and I’m “unlucky”—anyone who’s ever seen me knows that I’m very lucky, genetics-wise, and intelligence-wise and humor-wise and charisma-wise, and wise-wise (v, v wise)—and more that they are making choices that direct them towards their goals.

I have goals. I have dreams—prophetic ones, but also career ones. So if I have some sort of dream, what the fuck am I doing to make them happen? If the answer is nothing—I’m not going to answer because I’m afraid of the answer—then I should kick myself. Because WHY AM I WAITING?

I was walking back to my apartment from class the other day—like Friday? Idk, I’m not a historian—and I had had a bit of a downer week. Class was stressful, and not in a “fun, running around, hectic” stress kind of way, but in a “I WANT TO SLASH YOUR TIRES” stress kind of way. But the week was over, and I was buoyed by the thought of the weekend, and I realized that life is finite and we’re all going to die, one by one, until the void swallows Earth whole like a python swallowing a wild pig in the Amazon.

Well, I didn’t think exactly that because I’m in therapy and on medication and stable, but I thought, “Why the fuck am I not doing what I want?” I’m used to mostly getting my way—when you talk as loud as I do, it’s kind of a given that people will give you what you want so that you shut up—but I’m really bad about seeking out what I want. I let things happen to me.

And for what? It’s not like great things are plopping into my lap. Everything that’s a positive in my life is something that I sought out, or something that I was passionate about. Even this grand old hooker of a blog started because I was like, “I HAVE THOUGHTS.”

For noxample (not an example, because I’m shielding the actual occurrence behind lies) I decided to bake cookies. I’ve baked cookies before, but it never really turned out great. It was always at the wrong time—too close to dinner—and it always ended up not great. I would get nauseous, or not hungry, or I wouldn’t want them. But I thought about what I wanted—I wanted cookies. So I thought, “What am I going to do to get them?” I have to be annoying and bold and bake those cookies. They might not end up the way I want, but if I don’t bake them, and I still want them, then the only person I have to blame is myself. And that’s not something I’m comfortable with—being the one to stand in my own way.

The cookies didn’t work out. Maybe I didn’t add the flour, or the sugar—idk, this is a fake example and I don’t know how to make cookie dough. And I burnt my fingers. And it sucks. But at least I fucking tried. And at least I decided to do what I want. I’ve wasted so many hours and seconds, agonizing over what to do, that the relief of making a decision—any decision—makes the blow of not having the cookies I want soften.

We should do what we want, and be okay with not getting what we want. I’m bad at it. I’m bad at manifestation, because I take every speed bump as a road block. I let the fear of burnt fingers stop me from making cookies. But even though I scalded my fingers and burnt the cookies and fucked everything up, I don’t regret it. Because I did it.

I’m getting hungry/missing Ina Garten, so I’m going to stop talking about cookies. Even though it wasn’t actually about cookies; I’m stupid, so I’m thinking about actual cookies now. Snickerdoodle. UGH.

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Source: Twitter.com/dnnymccrthy // I’m sorry but isn’t this actually kind of a funny joke?

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