Watch your words. Sticks and stones is not that true anymore … ‘words will never hurt me’ is idealistic and may work a few times. But at the end of the day ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ – our words are stronger than any weapon. Use your words wisely. Always be nice, don’t hold back compliments. Don’t be rude or cruel intentionally. 
Spread love wherever you go. 

Caitlyn Jenner slammed at journalism summit

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“Caitlyn Jenner does not represent me,” a trans pioneer tells LGBT journalists

Caitlyn Jenner’s transition from male to female may have captivated the media’s attention, but she came in for sharp criticism at a public forum in San Francisco.

“Caitlyn has lived a very sheltered life and by virtue of her privilege she has some areas of ignorance,” author and trans advocate Jamison Green told an audience gathered at the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association convention. ”Hopefully she will be amenable to being educated about that and show a little bit of humility.”

“Just because someone is famous doesn’t mean they’re a leader,” noted advocate and journalist Ashley Love. She moderated the panel titled Affirmation Proclamation: Trans* Elders Review Misgendering in News, Culture and Hollywood.

“How do I feel about somebody who’s famous suddenly shows up and says, ‘My story is the story that’s going to save everybody’s…

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Russia and Gay Marriage – Putin’s reasons

According to a new biography, ‘Cameron at 10’, Prime minister David Cameron and Vladimir Putin had a ‘candid’ discussion on gay rights late at night during a G20 meeting in 2013. According to the biography, it was more of a ‘bickerfest’ rather than a discussion.

Putin stated that should gay people be allowed to marry in Russia, the percentage of children in the country would reduce drastically, and there wouldn’t be enough children to support Russia in the future. Well…

1. Has he never met a gay/lesbian couple and their never ending quest to have children? Being gay doesn’t generally remove your desire to have children. So this is kind of an invalid argument.
2. Considering the number of children in orphanages (who are treated pretty badly according to research), maybe less children may be a good idea? So that they’re not just abandoned at a random orphanage. or…even better….
3. Gay people could adopt children in orphanages. Now wouldn’t that be fantastic? Couple gets child, child gets a loving family? No? ok. I did some research, and reality is that Russia won’t let gay couples from abroad adopt Russian children. According to a newspaper article, when Malta (a tiny island in the Mediterranean sea which adopts a lot of Russian children) was discussing civil unions [which is now legal there], Russia threatened Malta that should the law pass, they would no longer let Maltese people adopt Russian children. So not only are they ‘punishing’ gay people for …. being gay, they are also punishing and neglecting babies from a loving family.

Needless to say, I find Putin’s excuse (should this be the real reason, which I doubt) empty. And like I said, it’s probably not even the real reason, if it is, then he didn’t really put much thought into it. Which I guess is even worse.

Religion and Homosexuality

Currently, the main religions of the world (I’m going with Christianity, Judaism and Islam), see homosexuality, and homosexual ‘acts’ as a sin. Each religion has its own way of punishing these ‘sinners’, but the most annoying thing is that people feel that their religion is justification for hurting someone else, regardless of if they are of the same faith.

And even if you are of the same faith, how can that allow you to treat someone else as a lesser human being? Or justify you hurting them?

I’ve studied up on various religions and philosophies, and from what I gathered, the main thing about ‘god’ or let’s just say ‘higher power’ is that this being loves all humans equally and without discrimination. So in that case, how can this higher being then be ok with the way homosexuals are treated?

In all honesty, if you are homosexual and you’re religious too, then embrace it. You are one of the few people who actually understand that your god/higher power does not hate you for being in love. Higher powers will never discriminate against love between two consenting adults.

So if higher powers don’t discriminate against it, why should we? 

Carmilla – Webseries and Kaitlyn Alexander

Carmilla – a webseries based on the novel of the same name by Sheriden le Fanu. Quite an old novella which speaks about a vampire called Carmilla, who crosses paths with an innocent, very naive and overly protected girl called Laura.

This webseries takes a more modern view of the novel, basing the story in Silas University, where both Carmilla and Laura are students. If you enjoy angst, subtle flirting, a bit less subtle flirting and uber lesbian cuteness – definitely give this webseries a shot.

But the lesbian context of the webseries isn’t my point of this post. My point is a particular character called La Fontaine. This particular character is a clever, savvy science major with a quick mind and a love of dissecting creatures. But more interestingly – this character is non-binary! And is played by a non-binary actor: Kaitlyn Alexander!

The beauty of this story is that when Alexander came out that they’re non-binary, this was translated into the show as well, when another character ‘interrogates’ La Fontaine about which pronouns to use in imaginary situations – which yes can get quite tiring for certain people, but it reflects as well the interest of this cis character in La Fontaine to be sure that she does not misgender them. Thus placing non-binary genders even on the webseries map. I really could not be more thrilled!

Kaitlyn Alexander is very present all over social media, so definitely follow them on twitter, instagram and so on for more non-binary love 😀

What is identity?

Simply put, your identity is everything about you. Therefore, this comprises your sexuality, gender and gender expression. So what’s the difference between them?

Sexuality

Your sexuality involves what kind of people you are attracted to, sexually or just romantically (if you are only ever romantically attracted to someone, then you are asexual, which is a sexuality in itself). It also involves what stuff turns you on. Are you more into traditional stuff, or do you prefer to be more adventurous in that department. This is all personal, and as long as you are not harming yourself or the other person(s) then no one can tell you it’s wrong.

Gender 

This basically means what you identify as. Do you identify as male, female, non-binary, agender (no gender), bi-gender (2 genders), demi or whatever? All are legit. Once again this is private, and honestly, no one has to know your gender unless you tell them. Of course, it can be uncomfortable for people to just take a look at you and label you a gender or the other, but really, it’s up to you whether or not to tell them. Think about your safety first.

Gender Expression

This is basically how you project yourself to the world. For example, you may identify as male, but express yourself in more traditional feminine ways (such as being very sensitive and calming). You could also project yourself in the traditional way, for example, you identify as female and project your gender in traditionally feminine ways.

Other forms of gender expression can involve clothing – so wearing clothes which make you feel like you. 

For trans* and non-binary people who experience dysphoria, our gender expression can help us keep that dysphoria at bay. Because even if we are misgendered, at least with our clothing we are trying to tell the world what kind of people we are. Do we like cute things, or are we more hardcore, do we wear bright colours, or are we more nondescript. Even if you do not experience dysphoria, clothing and body language are the perfect ways to subtly express to people who you are…and if they are attentive, they will pick it up.

So with all of these things (and other stuff, like likes and dislikes etc) comprise your identity. For this reason, no one should look at one aspect of you (say your sexuality) and judge you – because it is not all that there is to you. So if someone actually does judge you because of one aspect of who you are, then they are not worth it. People should get to know your full identity first before they can make a judgement of how nice you are as a person.

Dear Parents

It’s not your fault, your child being gay has nothing to do with your parenting skills, or because you didn’t buy them that one toy they wanted when they were 5. 

They were born that way.

And no, your genes are not to blame.
Let’s face it. it’s no one’s fault, because it’s not actually a bad thing. There are so many things which a child could do or be – addicts, vandals, members of a gang, pregnant/parents at a young age, before they’ve even had a chance to be children themselves. Being gay does not belong in this list.
You don’t want them to be gay because the life is tough? well, everyone faces their own struggles everyday. Yes, in certain places being gay is even more of a struggle, where hurdles can be found everywhere: in their personal life and even at work. So be a parent and support them more. They’re going to need it, don’t be part of the club which makes their life an even harder one. 

You have a problem with your child’s desire to get married and have children? it’s unnatural?

Who decides what is unnatural? Biracial marriages were unnatural just 50 or so years ago. Would you still consider it unnatural? 

Do you really think God (or whoever you believe in – if at all) would be opposed to love? Love is love, no matter the gender of the adults involved. Is it consensual? if it is, then great, it’s love. 
And not all heterosexuals can have children ‘naturally’. That’s what IVF techniques and adoption are there for. Does that make them any less of a parent? Not in the slightest. The same applies to a gay person who becomes a parent. It is the way you parent them, even today, which will show them how they should raise their own children.

Why I Need Gay Friends

So in previous posts I spoke about how I don’t really click with people who are LGBTQ. It’s something I’m still trying to understand, but for the most part I noticed that it is because when I’m in a group of LGBTQ people, I’m expected to act a particular way. I see my gay male friends, who are so flamboyant, and pretty much scream about how much sex they’re having with men they don’t even know. And with my female gay friends it’s always about which bitch broke up with which friend, and how she just wants to have sex with her long-distance girlfriend.

It’s never about *normal* stuff. Stuff that is unrelated to sex or relationships.

Most of the time I just want to speak about games, writing, art and music. Things I find fun and relaxing. Stuff that allows me to connect with the person with whom I am speaking.

But now I’ve reached a dilemma. When I’m with my heterosexual friends, and they start talking about their crush of the opposite sex. And whenever I do join in (because I’m pansexual, and also because I’m not blind), they get confused and want to know if I’m bisexual, and ‘since when do I like the opposite sex’. So I generally just remain silent and let them gush about their crushes, which then leads to the awkward situation where I’m just sitting down quietly and everyone else is chatting away.

I realised that in these situations it’s not even right for me to gush about any of my same-sex crushes, because then I would be making my straight friends uncomfortable, even though they’re allowed to do that with me.

I don’t have this problem with my LGBTQ friends, because for them my same-sex attraction is normal. They experience it too. For my hetero friends it’s not normal. Subconsciously, they’re still trying to come to terms with it.

To be honest, there are like two straight people I’m friends with [out of like a million] who are comfortable with me speaking about attractive people of my same sex. They treat it as something normal and expected.

So anyway, this got me thinking about how difficult it is for LGBTQ people to even make and keep friends. And why it’s so important for the community to become an actual…community. Where topics aren’t just LGBTQ-related, but where the community can actually discuss things outside the rainbow world. And also discuss rainbow-related things whenever they feel like. Like a normal community.

Lets face it, straight people don’t stay talking about sexuality (they never had to, and I’m not saying we should stop), what I’m saying is balance it out. Cause if we don’t want people to just see us as a sexual orientation, then maybe we should start making them listen to us as people, and not as a walking sexual orientation.

Hypocrisy at its Best

I couldn’t help but follow the Duggar Scandal going on. For those of you who (thankfully) never heard of the show ’19 and Counting’, the Duggars are highly conservative, patriarchal Christians. They don’t approve of things like women wearing short sleeves or short skirts, and they definitely do not approve of kissing before marriage. That stuff is just not done. To be sure that nothing like the sort happens, unmarried couples need to be chaperoned… well…

The eldest boy, Josh, got into a bit of trouble a few years back. When he was 12, he sexually assaulted a bunch of girls…including his own sisters. What makes it even worse is that his own parents knew of this and hid it for a few years before realising how disgusting and horrifying they were and reported it to the police.

So why bring it up now? Well, when you’re such a conservative family, who basically declare that everyone else is going to hell, then you wouldn’t really expect for them to not only have a son who sexually assaulted girls, including his own siblings, or to hide it once they found out. What happened to ‘God’ seeing all and judging all?

Another point which I’d like to make is that this family, with all its hypocrisies is fundamentally flawed. First off, the bunch of children they are spewing out is ridiculous. It feels like they made it their personal mission to populate the Earth alone. And with all those children, how much time are you actually using to parent them, to teach them, to listen to them? Or is the focus to hope that god will educate them and show them right from wrong?

Secondly, the exaggerated amount of rules they have for women is insane. So women cannot show their elbows? And why can’t they? Because they’re afraid it would be too much for men to handle and control themselves? That sort of reasoning is one of the various flaws we have in our general thinking, which we can see perpetuated even in schools, where girls are sent home because they are dressed in such a way which would ‘distract the boys’. Which not only tells women that they need to always accommodate men, or that men cannot control themselves ‘cause boys will be boys’, but it also ingrains in them the thought that their education does not matter as much as a boy’s.

So what happened here with Josh Duggar? He was 12, starting to hit puberty, felt sexual urges which no one would discuss with him at home. So he followed those urges. Is this excusable? Definitely not. But his family philosophy is that boys are right, girls are wrong. Boys are superior, girls are inferior. He wanted to touch a girl’s breast? He can trust that breast.

His parents ingrain this superiority complex even more when they choose to protect him to the detriment of their own daughters. Who are also their flesh and blood. No, they’re fine with not tending to their psychological and emotional needs, because they have just been sexually abused, just so that they can protect their prized boy.

This isn’t just a case of a 12 year old boy sexually abusing girls and being inappropriate (to say the least). This is a case which perfectly shows how society allows this to happen by turning a blind eye. Lets face it, the second Kim Kardashian filed for a divorce a mere 72-hours after her wedding, everyone heard about it. But how many heard of this case of a man sexually assaulting women, and how many cared to learn more and criticise the story. Yes, 19 and counting has been removed from the air, but I haven’t been reading many people commenting on the bigger picture. And I have yet to hear people from the conservative community criticising these actions.

Keeping my Identity

One of the joys, and also pains, of knowing open-minded people, is that when you inform those people of your gender then they are more likely to accept you. The price for this acceptance, particularly for those people who don’t understand/never knew about non-binary or genderqueer etc is that they will be asking you questions. Which you should generally answer, because lets face it, at least they’re trying to learn more. And it’s way better to learn from you, rather than from a clap-trap source online.

Recently, I made friends with someone with quite a scientific mind. This means that this person is open minded, but even logical. And as most of us know, gender is not the most logical in the world, it’s a personal experience which we present and express in our own way. But I wanted to try teach this person about gender, because in this person’s field of work, chances are they would meet someone who is gender variant.

The issue is that this person has been following stereotypes. For example, if you like pink then you’re a girl, if you like wearing dresses you’re a girl. If you enjoy ties and fast cars you’re a guy. And then this person got more complicated. This person knew of women who for example: did not like pink and enjoyed playing sports, and so concluded that possibly I was more this way.

Naturally, I explained that no, my hobbies and interests don’t affect my gender, my gender is internal. Yet, this is still something which needs to be explained further.

This got me thinking about my gender and identity. If we look at the stereotypes, women and men generally perpetuate these stereotypes, and even if say, a woman enjoys sports, there’s still something feminine about her. So I started to reevaluate myself.

I evaluated my expression, my hobbies, likes and dislikes. And yes, there are some things which are effeminate, but there are others which are masculine too. However, since I am AFAB then instead of viewing these as masculine, then they merely view it as a sign of lesbianism. Which means that till this day, people still confuse sexuality and gender. And that is not a mentality which is easy to change.

In the end, I once again reached the acceptance that I am, in fact, non binary. Despite my likes and dislikes, the way I express myself, the way I walk and speak. None of that matters, cause my core is non-binary.

The rest is just me expressing myself.