Fifteen Minutes To Fame

cristanw: Transwoman VS Ciswoman: An unfair transgender...

Sat, 18 May 2013 03:34:45 -0400

Transwoman VS Ciswoman: An unfair transgender advantage?

Just in case anyone believes there is such an advantage.

cjshark: bromancenthusiast: brightcopperpenny: andythanfiction...

Sun, 12 May 2013 04:49:18 -0400

She loves twirling in her "pretty dress."

And the next Tiny Princess Avenger is...

Tiny Princess Captain America is a friend to all living creatures!

cjshark:

bromancenthusiast:

brightcopperpenny:

andythanfiction:

jennifermatarese:

the-wordbutler:

sweaterkittensahoy:

brightcopperpenny:

I made my three-year-old niece her first convention/Halloween costume this year. If you ask her who she is dressed as, she’ll reply, “Tiny Princess Captain America!”

On Halloween, we discovered that if you point to a kid in a Captain America costume and ask her who he’s dressed as, she will also reply, “Tiny Princess Captain America!”

Attagirl.

ETA: I just added a post about how to make Tiny Princess Captain America!

From here on out, Steve shall be known as “Tiny Princess Captain America.” If Tiny Princess Captain America says they’re all Tiny Princess Captain America, who am I to argue?

I adore that little tiara.

This is the most adorable thing. Look at her!

This makes me smile so fucking much.

I picture Steve being perfectly okay with it, especially after the day he runs into Tiny Princess Captain America, trick-or-treating in the city along with a bunch of other kids. And she kinda stops in the crowd, and gets this great big smile on her face, and bolts down the sidewalk and up to him, and she just can’t say anything because she’s just in AWE.

So Steve crouches down and says, “You look just like me!”, and she beams even brighter, as if that’s even possible. Then Steve remembers that time Thor told him about how much he loves his little-girl fans, and how when he meets them he lets them “hold” Mjolnir, and also Steve thinks about Thor’s room full of little girl drawings at Stark Tower. (Yes, I *did* just manage to connect this with that Littlest Thor Fangirl post that went around a while ago.) Normally Steven doesn’t get recognized quite like the rest of the Avengers when he’s not in uniform except by elderly folks who remember him from the old days, but since the attack on New York, plenty of younger people and kids spot him on the street out of uniform and know him, just like this little girl.

So Steve asks, “What’s your name?” To which she finally says, “Tiny Princess Captain America!” And he laughs, and then whispers, “I meant your secret identity.” So she tells him, and gives him a big hug, and then runs off to rejoin the other trick-or-treaters.

A week later, she gets a letter in the mail from Stark Tower, and when she opens it she gasps, because it’s a drawing of Captain America and Tiny Princess Captain America fighting bad guys and saving the world together.

I had to.

And now, a response from Tiny Princess Captain America, via her mom:

“She was HILARIOUS when I gave her a printout of the fanart. The first thing she asked was, “What am I doing with my elbow?” Then there were more questions such as, “What are we doing?”, “Are the bad guys sort of like pasta?”, “Is he poking me?”, and “Why isn’t he wearing a dress?” This went on for about half an hour. You know how she is. But she absolutely loved it and it is now standing up on her art easel.

“She decided she wanted to draw a picture for the nice person who drew a picture for her. Tiny Princess Captain America is helping Big Tiny Princess Captain America fight the bad guys all around them. They are both holding their shields and TPCA of course has her signature dress of ruffly tiers. Bonus random balloon, too.

“Next up she decided that she wanted to draw TPCA’s friend Tiny Princess Thor, helping Big Tiny Princess Thor fight the bad guys. This time they have some helpers - butterflies, puppies, and ballet dancers.”

Mariah! It’s our future child!!!

Why the "Born this Way" Argument Sucks

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:55:16 -0400

angrybisexual:

It is cisheteronormative as fuck and pathologizes LGBT people. It makes our acceptance conditional on being unable to avoid being queer. “I tried to be a good boy, I tried soooo hard to be straight, but I just couldn’t help myself and turned out queer. I know I failed at being straight, but please don’t be mean about it”.

It puts the burden of proof on us. “Prove you were born that way or no rights for you!” This is not asked of other minorities. No one doubts it’s wrong to persecute a religious minorities, even if they haven’t proven that they were born with a gene that makes them believe that way.

It gives all the power to the oppressor. Straight (cishet) people get to decide who was born that way and who wasn’t, in a way that reflects preexisting prejudice. “It’s natural for gays to be that way, but bisexuals are just promiscuous”. “Gays and lesbians just are that way, but trans people are just really, really gay and trying to avoid it”. “Trans women have female brains in male bodies, but non-binary people are just making stuff up”. The general formulation would be: “[Group I approve of] were born that way and it’s okay, but [group I dislike or don’t understand] are just [prejudice]”. This benefits the more mainstream elements of the LGBT community (read LGs) and leaves more marginalized elements behind and does not constitute true liberation.

The accusation of having a choice (i.e choosing the homosexual lifestyle) is just a rationalization for many people. Bigots already made up their minds. And then they just look for any argument that supports their stance. If they actually believed in respecting people that were born that way then there would be no mistreatment of intersex people, who were obviously born intersex. (I’m bringing up intersex people, because discrimination towards them and LGBT people shares many root causes and therefore looking at how they are treated reveals something about the mindset of our common oppressors. I hope this does not come across as me trying to appropriate their struggles or being disrespectful).

The origin of sexual orientation and gender identity is not yet fully understood by science, research is still active. It could still turn out that we weren’t “born that way” after all.

So what’s the alternative, you ask? Well, we could just insist that a person’s sexuality and gender is personal and, therefore, you should just accept people even if you don’t understand their motivations. Also, on a personal level, we should be able to freely express ourselves as queer if that feels right. The question of our essential self is irrelevant (if such a self exists at all).

Final note. There is consensus among psychologists that forcefully trying to change someone’s sexual orientation doesn’t work. It just doesn’t. We don’t have to be born this way for “conversion therapy” to be abusive.

misohead: damngruchy: supermassiveasshole: i was teaching my grandma to use computer so we can...

Mon, 06 May 2013 23:43:47 -0400

misohead:

damngruchy:

supermassiveasshole:

i was teaching my grandma to use computer so we can talk on skype and such but today she went kinda mad at me because “i didnt show her the knitting programme” and i was like what

and it comes out she accidentally opened ms excel and found out its a great way to create knitting patterns

my grandma is 82

omg awesome

"I stopped counting how many people I’ve fucked because it got too hard to figure out what..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 23:41:40 -0400

“I stopped counting how many people I’ve fucked because it got too hard to figure out what “sex” meant.”

- ethicalslut, fetlife user

My sex life in a nutshell. Queer sex is a lot of things. It can be hard to figure out.

"Jennifer Wolch developed the term “shadow state” to describe the contemporary rise of the voluntary..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 14:07:47 -0400

“Jennifer Wolch developed the term “shadow state” to describe the contemporary rise of the voluntary sector that is involve din direct social services previously provided by wholly public New Deal/Great Society agencies. Legislatures and executive branches transformed bureaucracies basically into policing bodies, whose role became to oversee service provision rather than to provide it themselves. This abandonment provoked a response among organizations that advocated on behalf of certain categories of state clients: the elderly, mothers, children, and so forth. It also encouraged the formation of new groups that, lacking an advocacy past, were designed solely to get contracts and the jobs that came with them. To do business with the state, the organizations had to be formally incorporated, so they became non-profits. Thus, for different reasons, non-profits stepped up to fill a service void.

…

Antistate state actors welcomed non-profits under the rhetoric of efficiency (read: meager budgets) and accountability (read: contracts could be pulled if anybody stepped out of line). As a result of these and other pressures, non-profits providing direct services have become highly professionalized by their relationship with the state. They have had to conform to public rules governing public money and have found that being fiduciary agents in some ways trumps their principal desire to comfort and assist those abandoned to their care. They do not want to lose the contracts to provide services because they truly care about clients who otherwise would have nowhere to go; thus they have been sucked into the world of non profit-providers, which, like all worlds, has its own jargons, limits (determined by bid and budget cycles, and legislative trends), and both formal as well as informal hierarchies. And, generally, the issues they are paid to address have been narrowed to program-specific categories and remedies which make staff—who often have a great deal of understanding of the scale and scope of both individual clients’ and the needs of society at large—become in their everyday practice technocrats through imposed specialization. The shadow state, then, is real but without significant political clout, forbidden by law to advocate for systemic change, and bound by public rules and non-profit charters to stick to its mission or get out of business and suffer legal consequences if it strays along the way.”

- Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “In the Shadow of the Shadow State,” from The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (via thecurvature)

stvincentinexile: If you are part of a privileged group and have to constantly demand that somebody...

Thu, 02 May 2013 13:44:13 -0400

stvincentinexile:

If you are part of a privileged group and have to constantly demand that somebody in an oppressed group say “not all (insert privileged group here) are like that”

what you are really demanding is that they reassure you that you’re not like that and you’re not being held accountable

which is a cowardly thing to do and also shows the great lengths you will go to in order to avoid examining your role in a toxic system

cosplayingwhileblack: X Characters: Batgirl, Batman,...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 03:41:19 -0400

cosplayingwhileblack:

X

Characters: Batgirl, Batman, Wolverine

Series: DC & Marvel Comics

"After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: If anyone in the vicinity..."

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 03:25:36 -0400

“

After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.

Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?

The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.

She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,

Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.

Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—
Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,

With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.

They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost.

”

- Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.” I think this poem may be making the rounds, this week, but that’s as it should be. (via oliviacirce)

96.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:46:33 -0400

thingsthatverbme:

That is the number of white people I had to scroll by on my dash to see a single erotic picture of a person of colour.

People, send me erotic tumblrs that rebolg/post people of colour. And by this, I don’t mean tumblrs that reduce POC to a fetish.

I’m already following:

http://blackqueerandkinky.tumblr.com/

http://innuendophotos.tumblr.com/

http://pervertsofcolor.tumblr.com/

karnythia: knowledgeequalsblackpower: fetusfiesta: thepeoplesr...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:43:57 -0400

karnythia:

knowledgeequalsblackpower:

fetusfiesta:

thepeoplesrecord:

Oh look, it’s another blackface editorial in Vogue
April 19, 2013

Somehow, in 2013, yet another magazine has decided it would be a good idea to put a Caucasian model in literal blackface for a fashion editorial. This time, the culprit isVogue Netherlands. (In the recent past,Numéro, L’Officiel and Vogue Paris, have all come under for using blackface.)

Model Querelle Jansen stars in the May 2013 issue’s “Heritage Heroes,” sort of a retrospective editorial of some of Marc Jacobs’s work for Louis Vuitton. The styling of each look is, we guess, somehow meant to illustrate the inspiration of a particular collection. Marc Jacobs found inspiration in African-American cultural icons for his Fall 2008 and Spring 2009 collections–Grace Jones and Josephine Baker, respectively. Vogue Netherlands decided that the best way to convey those inspirations would be with some white models, black face paint and wigs of what looks like black hair, worn throughout. A caption from the editorial translates to “This collection is inspired by the style of the Parisian showgirl Josephine Baker, mixed with tribal influences.”

A couple of alternative ideas: use a model who already looks something like Grace Jones or Josephine Baker without face paint. Or just, you know, don’t paint a white person’s face black ever? Why is this even something we have to keep pointing out? European editors and stylists especially, it seems, are really not getting it.

Vogue Netherlands, though it’s a relatively new Vogue (it launched in March of last year), has a particularly bad track record with using non-white models. And lest we forget, the Netherlands is also the birthplace of the controversial “Zwarte Piet” tradition, wherein Dutch people dress up in blackface to celebrate Sinterklaas every year.

As many Dutch commenters have pointed out, Zwarte Piet takes place during Sinterklaas, a winter holiday that is similar to Christmas but preceeds it. Those in blackface are depicting a helper of Sinterklaas (essentially Santa Claus) who was either a slave or a white person covered in soot, depending on whom you ask.

Source

jesus fucking christ.

Before anyone claims they don’t know what black face is or that there are no black people in the Netherlands? Kindly spend some time with Google. And note that they chose to do this as part of a “nod” to African Americans. This is how you use racist imagery to generate free press and increase your sales.

androphilia: فواد و امیر می نویسند:این عکس را اول تقدیم...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:50:40 -0400

androphilia:

فواد و امیر می نویسند:
این عکس را اول تقدیم میکنیم به‌ مادرانمان و بعدا به‌ تمام زنان سرزمینمان کوردستان.
پوشیدن لباس زنانه‌ی کوردی نه‌ تنها تحقیر نیست بلکه‌ یک افتخار بزگ است برای ما.
از دیرباز زنان سرزمینمان پا به‌ پای مردان در همه‌ی جایگاه جامعه‌ حضور داشته‌اند،
در آن زمانی که‌ به‌ خاطر زن بودن آنهارا زنده‌ به‌ گور میکردند، زنان ملتمان کوردستان در جنگها فرمانده‌ و در جامعه‌ از ارزش والایی برخوردار بودند،
هیچ کس و هیچ دولت و قانونی نمیتواند به‌ زنان ما بی احترامی کند .

“Being a woman is not a means to humiliate and punish anyone”

After a policeman in the Iranian Kurdish town of Marivan paraded an accused criminal in traditional Kurdish women’s clothes in the streets in order to humiliate him, women marched in the city condemning the use of women’s attire as a kind of humiliation.

In support, an internet campaign of Kurdish and other Iranian men has sprung up showing men wearing Kurdish women’s clothes and messages and support. For example, this message says,”wearing Kurdish women’s clothes is not only not an insult, it is instead a great honor for us,” and goes on to describe how women stand side by side with men in every part of society and during wartime.

Support the campaign by liking the page!
زن بودن ابزار تحقیر و تنبیه هیچ کس نیست

(via Ajam Media Collective)

Click a few dots, and this program will try to guess your age.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:39:05 -0400

Click a few dots, and this program will try to guess your age.:

bittergrapes:

goldenheartedrose:

stripesweatersandwaterbottles:

dannylaceys:

captain-ray-assbutt:

tal9000:

socialjusticemage:

bubonickitten:

desliz:

sometimesifindstuffinteresting:

explosions-of-glitter:

chichevache:

mkusunshine:

jaredsasquatch:

ladymalchav:

samati:

scishow:

jtotheizzoe:

It’s part of an experiment to analyze how motor control changes with age. It guessed my age within a year (told me I had the clicking skills of a 31-year-old!).

What about you?

The program guessed I was 30 - I will be 33 in a month.

It guessed I was 40 - I will be 38 next week.

It guessed me correctly!

It said I was 43. I’ll be 18 in a couple of months.

mine said 42 and im 23

it said 30, I’m 28

close enough

it told me 32 and i will be 25 this summer

said 28, i’m 26

said 28, I’m 28

said I’m 30, I’m 23

then again I’m alarmingly low on sleep and my sleep meds are starting to kick in, so…

It said I’m 30. I’m 21. :(

It said I’m 30. I’m 24.

i got 31 - I’m 18

I got 33 and I’m 21.

29 and I am 25. My partner got 30 and is also 25, but she is half a year older than me.

29. I’m turning 32 this week.

29, but I’m 20.

29 but I’m much older.

Two Black students arrested and facing criminal charges for protesting a group of White students mocking Black people

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:23:46 -0400

Two Black students arrested and facing criminal charges for protesting a group of White students mocking Black people:

It seems like a case of when keeping it wrong goes real.

What started as a celebration of the Hopkins High School’s cross country ski team qualifying for the state tournament culminated is outrage, signs in protest and the suspension and criminal charges of two African-American students who decried what they felt was racial mockery. And, according to supporters of the African-American students, no disciplinary action was taken against the white students who openly mocked African-Americans.

The incident began on Feb. 13; when eight to 10 white members of the school’s ski team came to school dressed in motley ensembles of do-rags, fur coats, white tank top undershirts, sagging pants and gold chains. One even had a fake marijuana joint tucked behind his ear. Somehow word spread that the students were celebrating a “Ghetto Spirit Day.” Those who came to school in costume dispute this assertion, and claimed to school administrators that they were dressing up to mimic popular white rapper, Macklemore, who sings “Thrift Shop.”

“That’s absurd,” said Nekima Levy-Pounds, a civil rights attorney and associate professor at the University of St. Thomas’ School of Law. “They called it ‘Ghetto Spirit Day’ and when I looked at the pictures and video of them it was evident their intent was to mock African-Americans. What they claim is laughable, just laughable.”

Levy-Pounds said the Macklemore claim is just a convenient out for the members of the ski team. In Macklemore’s hit song, “Thrift Shop” he tells a tale against designer consumerism. Macklemore is very out front about showing cultural tolerance, even choosing to perform in t-shirts that call for the legalization of gay marriage. A very detailed image search of Macklemore could not find the rapper dressed in any of the attire the Hopkins students donned, minus the fur coat, which he wears in his video for “Thrift Shop.”

What has Levy-Pounds and others so outraged is the notion that, to date, no disciplinary action has been taken against members of the ski team for violating the school’s policy of racial harassment and bullying, but two African-American students who posted signs in protest of the “spirit” activities were suspended due to their protest efforts, given criminal citations for a non-physical dispute with an assistant principal and, according to Levy-Pounds, one was even handcuffed. According to Levy-Pounds, the criminal charges stemmed from the students trying to retrieve their protest posters from the trash, where the assistant principal had placed the posters.

“The way (the African-American students) were treated it felt like they were being retaliated against for standing up. Rather than using the incident as a teachable moment, the school used it to criminalize these young African-American men,” said Levy-Pounds. “I applaud (the two students) for not responding with violence and addressing the situation in the manner they did.”

Levy-Pounds said the school’s response is indicative of a pervasive school culture that seeks to indoctrinate African-Americans into the criminal justice system.

“It’s a part of a pattern; part of a system that continues to devalue young Black men,” said Levy-Pounds.

Hopkins Superintendent John Schultz said due to federal student privacy rights he could not discuss and disciplinary actions taken by the school, but said the actions of the ski team were not reflective of the overall environment at Hopkins High.

“There was no spirit week going on and there was no Ghetto Spirit Day,” said Schultz. “This was all student driven by some members of the cross country ski team, who said they were dressing like a rapper.”

Schultz said the members of the ski team were pulled aside by faculty the day of the incident and informed that their attire may be offensive to people of different cultures. However, according to Levy-Pounds, nothing more was done and days later the team went on to compete in the state championships. Levy-Pounds said the ski team’s antics clearly violated the school’s written policy against racial harassment and should have warranted disciplinary action.

Levy-Pounds said she has called on the district to bring in a third party investigator to look into the incident and make disciplinary recommendations. Schultz said the district is bringing in a third party investigator, but that investigator has yet to be determined.

Civil rights attorney Levy-Pounds has also called for the district to expunge the suspensions from the affected African-American students’ records and to have all criminal charges dropped.

“These students should be given a written apology from the district,” said Levy-Pounds.

liberalsarecool: Last OSHA inspection: 1985.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:20:26 -0400

liberalsarecool:

Last OSHA inspection: 1985.

That Awkward Moment When...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:16:12 -0400

you realise your baby in a towel bag (for use after a bath) looks like a KKK Grand Wizard because of the unfortunate way the hood on the bag is shaped. Yikes.

Got to love cis people

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:56:56 -0400

Boss: Have you had any operations?
Me: Well, I had four teeth extracted when I was ten. Is that an operation? It was under general anaesthetic.
Boss: I don't mean teeth extractions!
Me: Oh, well I was born with club feet, so I may have needed some surgery on them, but it would have been when I was a baby so I don't remember it.
Boss: Have you changed anything?
Me: My clothes? I change my clothes quite often.
Boss: And your underpants, I hope. But are you doing anything about changing?
Me: Changing my underpants? Yeah, I do laundry fairly regularly.
Boss: Well if you don't want to tell me, just say so instead of giving me silly answers!

dazzlepath: just-a-skinny-boy: I can’t decide what’s funnier,...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:47:30 -0400

dazzlepath:

just-a-skinny-boy:

I can’t decide what’s funnier, the dog, or the guy that’s dying of laughter in the background

This is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I don’t know why I still can’t stop laughing.

cauda-pavonis: This legit makes me want to cry because I have...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 04:05:39 -0400

cauda-pavonis:

This legit makes me want to cry because I have *never* seen a picture of an older trans man naked. It’s always young guys, usually much younger than me. It’s like we don’t have a future, an adulthood, a middle age, an old age. It’s like we just stop.

As a trans man who’s well past the age (and transition status) of ~sexxay tranz boiz~, pictures like this give me some kind of hope. We’re not just one image stuck in time, snapshot of a skinny white andro urban-queer young trans dude with perfect top surgery scars, poster boys for young radical queerdom. We’re not all Youth. We live in more than two dimensions, and one of them is time.

Older queers tend to fall off the map full stop. Trans people, even more so. But we don’t disappear once we stop being, basically, fashionable. Supporting our young people is important, but we need to show them we have a future, too.

I literally cannot envision my own future. There are no images of older men like me.

One image obviously can’t address all the lacks in representation, much less one image of a hot skinny (apparently?) white man. But just to have that one extra factor in there, of age, it’s - it’s important.

More, please.

Yes, to both the images and to the above commentary. I love seeing images of older queer and trans people as I become more and more of one myself (and was never the ~sexxxay~ anything *shrug*).

File Under: Incredibly Obvious

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:55:52 -0500

I’m pretty much on a tumblr hiatus. I don’t have the energy or interest to keep up at the moment. I will likely come back at some point.