LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back

I’m very late, putting this up late in the evening of December 3rd. And yes… I haven’t blogged here since 2021! But this is not the blog post for catching up.

I’ll keep it short and sweet…

Congress is back in session. And luckily, right now, Democrats are still mostly in charge. So now’s the time to act on behalf of our LGBTQIA+ comrades. Please call your congressperson and anyone else in government that you can. Tell them the following:

1) You will not tolerate any backpedaling on LGBTQ+ rights whatsoever

2) If they fail to strongly stand up against these attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, then you will take your vote elsewhere next election.

I don’t like encouraging people to not vote Democrat, especially now when the Republican party has openly become the Fascist party. But a lot of Democrats… both politicians and talking heads… have been talking about compromising on LGBTQIA+ rights… especially for trans people… literally talking about throwing our trans and non-binary comrades under the bus for the sake of winning an election.

This is unacceptable. A lot of things are certainly up for debate and majority votes. The rights of our fellow human beings do not fall into that category. It is not the place of Liberals to throw the LGBTQIA+ community under the bus for the sake of wins. It is their place to ensure that the rights won are impossible to roll back, and to expand those rights to include protections for all members of the LGBTQIA+ community, including our trans and non-binary comrades.

I may or may not put up a rant about how Liberals have decided to throw trans and non-binary people under the bus. I’m extremely frustrated with this, but my thoughts are just not coherent on it at the moment, aside from anger and fear at what’s to come.

Please support the LGBTQIA+ community. Please hold your representatives feet to the fire. Ensure that they understand that rights are NOT negotiable. They can NOT be rolled back.

Thank you.

A Rant About the UK Election (They DID Vote In Their Interests)

So I call this a rant and it kind of is. It’s about a consistent narrative that I’ve always been sick of, and why I think the UK election proves that I’m right to be sick of it. It’s a narrative pushed by liberals, neo-liberals, and class reductionists. It’s a narrative that assumes that only oppression in existence is class; that most people only care about class. It’s a narrative that assumes that bigotry is an abstract concept as opposed to a real thing that directly affects real people.

The narrative, of course, is the constant questioning of why people vote for the far right. Why did people vote for Trump and the Republicans? Why did people vote for Boris Johnson and the Tories? Why do people keep voting against their own interests?

Well… the answer to that question, as far as I’m concerned, is that they aren’t voting against their own interests; we just keep getting our hypotheses about their interests wrong, and their voting behavior proves it.

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The Revolution Will Be Intersectional Or It Will Be Bullshit

Okay look. I get it. It’s really easy to look at class and see that as the only “real” oppression in the world. When you’re a straight, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied man, it’s quite literally the only oppression you can possibly face. And it’s absolutely true that the only privileges we can truly see as individuals are the privileges we don’t have, which are, as a result, magnified in our minds.

To get selfish for a moment… I obviously know that white privilege is a thing, but I don’t see it because I’m white. I obviously know that male privilege is a thing, but I don’t see it because I’m a man. Same for cis privilege, and straight privilege. Technically I don’t suffer from class oppression because my family is middle class and I get to take advantage of that. But then again, I work in retail and make maybe $200 a week. So I can see class privilege to a point because my only protection from class oppression is my parents… I’m not going to say that I know exactly what said oppression looks like, because I’ve never been homeless, but I also have a roof over my head because my parents give me one without charging me a rent I can’t afford; which is why I try to give when I can to the homeless and fight so hard for a Universal Basic Income and Universal Housing… no one should have no money, and no one should be homeless. And it’s a lot easier to make that happen at the federal level than people think… you just have to get rid of the greedy capitalists in power, first…

So… maybe not so easy…

But I digress…

The point is that I get it. I get only fighting for class.

The thing is, though…

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Maybe #MeToo Has Gone too Far, But That’s a *Good* Thing

Trigger Warning: Discussion of accusations of sexual harassment, assault, rape, #MeToo, #TimesUp, #TheEmptyChair, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Larry Nassar, and the social consequences of all of this.

There’s a lot of talk lately about whether the #MeToo movement has gone too far, especially after the accusations about Aziz Ansari came out. And honestly? It’s a good question to ask. Society is experiencing a massive shift, and people who once got away with horrid behavior are now, finally, being held accountable for it. Often, that means being held accountable for mis-judged comments or creepy behavior. Many times, it means getting in trouble for violating consent. And it also means being held accountable for assault and/or rape.

I think that, in a way, it has gone too far. But the twist?

I don’t think that’s a bad thing. In fact, I’m glad it’s going too far, and I think it can go further.

And here’s why…

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