Showing posts with label queer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label queer. Show all posts

Monday, 3 August 2015

YOU'RE A WANKER NUMBER NINE: A tale of two parts.

Part One: Facebook and Gay Cinema

Well it all started when a girl I knew posted on Facebook how much she loved Katherine Heigl and how excited she was for 'Jenny's Wedding', I too am excited for any film where Alexis Bledel plays a woman in a same-sex relationship, as I think, should everybody be:


But my friend's excitement shocked me for two reasons: one, she, a girl I knew to be straight knew about a film that the queer community have had their eye on for over a year, while we wait patiently for it to get funded; two, not only did she know about gay cinema, she wanted to see it. I wrote a comment on this status declaring my shock:


The exchange caught the eye of a gay male friend of ours, and thus begun a discussion on the tropes and clichés of gay cinema, and how that when we tell straight people about gay cinema it feels like we're revealing a big secret. I told him about how ever lesbian film ever was about a straight girl catching the eye of a bold lesbian and beginning an elicit love affair, while he assured me that 'gay films about men are the worst, it's literally always about how they cheat on their partners because someone hot comes into town. every single one'. We laughed about it and agreed that while we were annoyed at the predictability of gay cinema it at least beat the constant bombardment of straight couples, and seeing people like us on the big screen was worth it, even if they were fucking idiots. 

He and I each had our favourites, mine being Imagine Me and You, Friend Green Tomatoes and The Four Faced Liar. His being Redwoods, (now judging by the poster it looks a little macho for me but what the fuck do I know about films about boys who like boys, both boys and people who like boys are a fucking mystery to me).

Now something else that both annoys and mystifies me, is that it's very rare that when you're discussing gay cinema with straight people that they've heard of the film that you're talking about, however it's common for them to be 'what you guys have your own films', and the answer is yes, yes we do have our own films, we have 'gay cinema' and 'gay marriage' and my personal favourite, I don't have relationships, oh no, I have 'lesbian relationships'. Now I'm going slightly of topic but it links into the hetreonormative bullshit that I will be calling out in part two.

 Now where was I? That's right after our little chat a different friend drops their two penn'orth in and says he prefers anime, because all though in was 'sketchy' and 'tedious' at times, at least it 'beats western gay media'...after a collective calming deep breath from the queer community, I was ready to go into battle as a fierce and proud keyboard warrior. Queer cinema is like an annoying family member; I may call it all the names under the sun, but as soon as one of those straight people starts, oh you had better fasten your seat belts and pull up your big boy pants, I am coming for you.
 


 Okay maybe not, but I almost did, and my Mam always said it's the thought that counts. I instead turned my pout over to a different social media platform, thus bringing us to...

Part Two: Twitter and Hetreonormativity
( now I think it's worth adding here that quite often when I am typing I have pairs of words that I will mix up, most commonly 'you' with 'my' and 'never' with 'very', now it's okay in blog post and essays because I can go back and proof read, but when I'm tweeting or using messenger and the like I often get over excited at getting my information out as fast as possible and forget to check, so I'm sorry but you're going to have to use your noggins to decipher some of what's coming) 


I posted a series of tweets that went a little something like this:








This is said article: 'This Is What Happens When An Openly Gay Man Falls In Love With A Woman'. Now considering that I had tweeted it out a few days earlier, it took me longer than I am willing to admit to find that link, so long in fact that I was started to think I had made the whole thing up and that maybe this was all part of my imagination. As I mentioned I tweeted this earlier in the week, and my friend Calvin, a straight, cis ally, had read it, now all though his twitter feed is annoyingly private, I am still going to share what he had to say:

@abbyjanepearson That article was class
 — Calvin (@CDThornborrow)

@abbyjanepearson Interesting and well written
 — Calvin (@CDThornborrow)

And I took it upon myself to give him the education he never asked for, now thankfully Calvin is a close personal friend of mine and not just someone that follows me on twitter, so he was fully prepared for what came next, that is twelve sets of 140 characters before he even got a chance to get a word in edgeways:












And I think we can all agree with my next statement:


I haven't even finished my bachelors degree yet, and even if I had it's in neither Gender Studies, nor is it in Queer Theory, it's in Fine Art. In fact I'm not even sure if Gender Studies and Queer Theory are real courses.

To end I'm just going to leave these hear for you gentle reader:


Don't cry Lena, it's okay, everything's going to be fine. 
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Saturday, 4 July 2015

Home. It's that place where your heart is, or that bunk bed you're too tall to sleep in now so it's probably a good job you moved out anyway.






















I just want to start this by saying that I don't think that anyone should have to hide who they are, but 'should' is one of those bullshit words, you've got to wait until you feel safe. The world isn't perfect, and shit happens. Also I do not in anyway wish to diminish the absolute terror that comes with coming out as anything other than heterosexual (I'm probably going to say 'gay' or 'queer' for the rest of this post, listing all the sexualities or saying 'other than heterosexual' is a bit of a mouthful). And I'm not saying one is scarier than the other, definitely not, I'm just seeking a bit more empathy for my life, empathy, it's a thing guys.

Anyway, disclaimers aside, it must be shit fucking scary coming out as trans, because like, with being gay, you can tell all your mates and fuck girls every which way from Sunday, then go home and tell your Mam you're straight and she never has to know until you're ready to tell her. But with being trans if you want to be living your life you've kinda got to tell your parents if you ever want to see them again (obviously for some people that aren't so lucky they tell their folks and never see them again anyway), either that or risk major emotional trauma by pretending to be someone you're not...and even as I wrote that I could hear myself saying 'well yeah, that's kind of what hiding being gay is like too, idiot' but what I'm getting at is like, if you're trans and you decide that surgery is what is best for you, and that hormones are what's going to make you happy that is going to be so difficult, in fact I'm going to say impossible to hide. Like even if I got on the phone to my Mother after a few months on T she is going to notice that something is different, and I recently got an undercut shaved into the back of my head, and if facial hair grows back at the same speed, I'd have a 5 o'clock shadow by breakfast. Like being gay, trans comes with its own set of tough choices, must be why the universe only lets the coolest people be that way. Don't let people push you, come out when YOU feel like you are ready, and when you are safe, you do you.


Hey if you want to educate yourself, or find out more it's super easy, everything's on the internet nowadays:
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Friday, 30 May 2014

Casual racism and why I'd rather be gay than black. (It sounds worse than it is)

I love calling out racists (especially on Facebook, where everyone can see and they can't get out of it or pretend they didn't say it because it's there in black and white for us all to witness), because a lot of them would cringe if you called them that, because that's not how they see themselves, because that's how easy our society and culture has made it to be casually racist, remarks roll off the tongue and are all over Facebook. Most people would say 'I'm not a racist' or even 'I have black friends', but guess what assuming you are better than someone because you are a colour they aren't, or making assumptions about people based on skin colour is fucking racist. In the same way as saying something is 'so gay' is still a homophobic statement even if you 'love the gays'. Another quick comparison between homophobia and racism, and it starts bad so let me get to the end before anyone goes off on one. I, Abby Jane Pearson, being a young woman living in the UK, would rather be gay than black, and I'll tell you for why right now, because, being gay and black are similar in the sense that, there's nothing wrong with either,neither can, nor should be, helped, they're just facts of life, people are just born that way and it's our differences that make us beautiful and they should be celebrated, but you'll always get some bigot fucking it up for the rest of us, and here comes the reasoning behind why I'd rather be gay than black, as a gay women I can chose when and where, and to whom I come out, when I feel safe and comfortable, sure as shit nobody in the entire world has to come out as black. I've got this friend, she's both black and beautiful, and people think it's okay to shout 'nigger' at her in the street. If a racist approaches her in the street, she cannot deny the beautiful chocolatey tone of her skin, she cannot CHOOSE to be safe. And that my friends, is why I'd rather be gay than black.
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