This weekend, activists in Uganda – a country where homosexuality is punishable by death – held their first Pride.
This is the epitome of courage. I have no other words.
this is making me tear up holy shit
This makes me soo fucking proud most of us in places like Nigeria and Uganda especially northern Nigeria, the punishment by law is getting stoned to death if you show any signs of being gay. This makes me sad that Me and thousands of others can’t be themselves but still, this is so FUCKING beautiful I am proud of the people of my African continent!
I just want to make it clear that the photo was taken, and the first Ugandan Pride was held, in 2012. Five years later they’re still celebrating Pride. Despite the fact that they face police raids and arrests, they’ve made this an annual event.
hey i made gifs of these so that ppl can see what they look like !! since sometimes just seeing pictures doesn’t always get the sign across
queer:
bi:
transgender:
gay/lesbian:
Awesome
For all my deaf / mute LGBTQ followers or anyone trying to learn
This is such a great post! Deaf and hard of hearing people are members of our community, so let’s show them some love. You can learn ASL online using the resources in this post: http://mashable.com/2014/04/21/how-to-sign/#SdHJ06gZ1Zqy
I will never not reblog this. It’s so hard to come across this post and this ain’t something ASL class will teach you. Sign language is spectrum of widely used languages (they differ country to country) and you never know when you’re going to need it.
The ASL sign for “transgender” is the same sign for “beautiful” but placed over the heart. Happy Trans Day of Visibility!
And then one of my friends was like “Well don’t be disappointed just like recognize that- hey isn’t it interesting that you’re filming this movie about a gay love story where everyone is supportive, the director is gay, he has his family with him, everyone is here, it’s a loving environment and you’re still not comfortable. What is it that you have to figure out?”. And I told the cast on wrap night and it was awesome, it was chill. It was no big deal of course. And then I think I just started to reflect. Which I’ve obviously done for a while. It just, it was sort of a final push.
How ‘Love, Simon’ Inspired Star Keiynan Lonsdale to Come Out Publicly
I know a lot of lesbians that used to identify as bi who worried that coming out as a lesbian would contribute to invalidating bisexuality in some way, by making it seem like a “stepping stone” to coming out as gay. I’ve also known bi women who identified as lesbians and changed their labels later, and worried that they were contributing to some kind of idea about how men can ~turn lesbians. I just wanted to say that it’s no individual lesbian or bi women’s responsibility to fix straight people’s perception of us. Like, it’s not your duty to serve as a political symbol! It’s your duty to find happiness even if that means changing ur label at some points.
while i get and agree with the fact that gay people should probably play gay people and gay stories are best written by gay people, the fervor to prove that “straight people shouldn’t play gay characters!!” is what the interviewer used to forcibly out lee pace so like
idk maybe slow your roll and realize that like… actors can be closeted, content creators can be closeted, and tbh this “you can only write your own experiences, never write someone else’s” rhetoric is also a bigot’s fucking wet dream?? like the perfect excuse to never write diverse characters?? and to say that they have nothing in common with people who don’t look/love/exist the same way as them??
yeah, the author of simon vs the homo sapien’s agenda is a cis straight woman, which means love, simon (though directed by a married gay man with multiple gay characters played by gay/bi actors) is based on a novel written by a straight woman… but this straight woman literally ends her book acknowledging the LGBT teens who helped her write the book and make sure she was writing it appropriately.
this is the content we want
listen… EVERY SINGLE piece of media EVER involves some level of writing about experiences that are not your own, especially if it’s diverse. even bland stories just about white people involves an author writing about genders that are not their own. if you want a story with characters of color, white authors are going to have to write about those perspectives. if you want gay characters in every story, straight authors are gonna have to write about those perspectives. even LGBT narratives might involve gay authors writing about bi characters or cis authors writing about trans characters.
what we HOPE FOR when they do that is that they talk to people… actually belonging to those groups to learn what is and isn’t appropriate and true to life. which is what the author of simon vs the homo sapien’s agenda did.
it’s exactly what she did. she literally worked in a support group for LGBT and GNC kids, saw they did not have cute love stories written for them after they told her this, and then worked with them to give them the love story they craved.
this is a good thing. this is progress for lgbt people. this is the path we need to walk towards getting LGBT content created by LGBT authors.
when you attempt to take the ~moral ground on protesting this film, all you’re doing is telling people who fund these projects that gay products don’t sell. they don’t get the nuance of what you’re going for. and, chances are, you’re looking like a fucking hypocrite, because i can promise you most of the canon gay characters you stan profit a cishet somehow (if they’re even canon).
so, y’unno, as someone who has read simon vs the homo sapien’s agenda AND seen the fucking movie let me tell you!! it’s fine!! it’s diverse beyond having gay character, it’s written respectively, and it hit home on a lot of experiences i WISH i had as a gay teen. it’s corny, it’s silly, and it’s all i ever would have wanted at 13, 14, 15
if you don’t want to see it, just fucking say so! but don’t act like you’re doing it on moral grounds. you can just… not like a movie or not want to see it without it being some moral victory.
I knew that I wasn’t straight, but I didn’t know if I was gay, I didn’t know if I was bisexual – I didn’t feel comfortable having that conversation with myself. I was 20 when I came out the first time. It got to a point where I had fallen in love with a friend, and one of my other best friends had sort of noticed. And there were rumors going around in the dance world back home. It was breaking my heart. I was going crazy and I didn’t know what to do. I was lying and lying and lying, and doing everything I could to hold on to my secret. Because I hadn’t figured it out yet, and so it felt like everyone else was deciding it for me and they knew better than I did. It was really scary.
Pass Through Fire 