I don’t know if that’s precisely true, but I do know that when someone tells me what their internal experience is, I believe them. When someone tells me they’re gay or lesbian, I believe them. When someone says they’re attracted to people without reference to gender, I believe them. When someone says they’re not interested in sex with anyone, I believe them. And I don’t think it takes a PhD in sex to recognize that each individual is THE ONE AND ONLY EXPERT on that individual’s sexuality. Asexuality is just another variation on human sexuality. We’re all made of the same parts, just organized in different ways. And if somebody says that’s their internal experience, well they’re the only ones who knows that. —  (A) Sexual :: the dirty normal (via ace-muslim)

(via eldritchjoy)

thetricksterandtheoptimist:

psa that you can be the horniest motherfucker on the planet and still asexual since asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction and not lack of libido 

you can like sex but be asexual because wow you touch nerves designed to send pleasure signals weirdly enough it feels good but you might not be sexually attracted to anyone and therefore not want to have sex with anyone but you know you might have sex with someone i’m not policing what you do

but like if you don’t you might masturbate all the time

that’s ok too you’re still asexual because it’s just the lack of sexual attraction to other people!!!!

(uwu) ok thank you carry on

(via greenchestnuts)

strugglingtobeheard:

strugglingtobeheard:

vaganja:

Hey ya’ll!

If you have time, please check out this link. I’m looking for some support from my fellow comrades regarding my housing situation. This is more than just raising money. This is about finally having stability and peace in my life. Any way you can help - whether it be financially or simply sharing this with your friends, family, followers - is greatly appreciated. If I reach my goal, I can finally have a home instead of worrying about where I’m going to sleep at night.

This is a step in finally taking care of myself and working towards what I deserve. 

Thank you for taking the time out to read this.

Thank you for all your care, love, and support.

Your comrade,

Lee

P.S. - If any of you have further questions, please feel free to contact me here or via email.

Boost and reblog! Lee is an awesome person

Boost again! Please share and donate if you can

(via pbnpineapples)

What does casual racism look like in LGBTQ spaces? A lot like casual racism everywhere else.

Casual racism thinks mixed race people are “exotic,” penis size is determined by race according to “some studies” that probably don’t exist, black women are aggressive, and just about every other common racial stereotype under the sun.

Really, stereotypes fuel casual racism in all its forms.

Casual racism also thinks that LGBTQ people have transcended all responsibility for dealing with racial issues.

For example, if you’re a queer person of color who wants to vocalize a racial concern in a predominantly white queer space and casual racism rears its head, you could be accused of being divisive (extra irony points if you were pointing out divisiveness that actually exists).

Sometimes casual racism masquerades as inclusion or open mindedness. For example, there are some gay people who go out of their way to date someone of another race just to say they’ve done it.

Such gays then receive the Congratulatory Cookie of Open Mindedness from people of color for letting us sleep with them.
But not really, because dating someone because of their race is as ridiculous as rejecting someone because of their race.

The same applies to predominately white gay groups that go out of their way to snag token people of color (oblivious to the fact that these spaces don’t always feel inclusive to the people of color in question).

Tokenism may seem progressive on its surface, but it’s really just another form of othering.

So if you see casual racism, remember it. And talk about it.
Notice if you’re ever guilty of it and, if you are, take responsibility for it.

I would say explain it to other white LGBTQ people, but it’s frustrating when it takes a white person saying the same thing people of color have been saying for ages to convince other white people to change their actions.

Instead, tell them to take the race related concerns of LGBTQ people of color seriously – as in listen to us.

As LGBTQ people, we get silenced all the time, told we’re too sensitive, told not to flaunt our sexuality.

Sexual minorities of color can find themselves silenced further when their concerns about race are dismissed by the predominantly white, mainstream LGBTQ community.

Let’s keep working to change that.

—  Jarune Uwujaren, “How White LGBTQ People Can Be Inclusive Of People Of Color,” Everyday Feminism 2/5/13 (via racialicious)

(via thoughts-thatfly)

ace-muslim:

The latest issue of the Psychology & Sexuality journal focuses on asexuality as a special theme. The issue features eight articles about asexuality. For the benefit of the asexual community, I am providing brief summaries of each of these eight articles from copies I have obtained for private…

actualcanadiansherlockholmes:

Sending love to trans* women today, especially those for whom women’s day is not safe space. You matter and you’re welcome here.

(via glamaphonic)

Resources for Male Survivors

redqueenxlt:

letstalkaboutrape:

I posted last week asking people if they knew of some good resources for male victims of sexual assault. Here is the list people came up with:

www.malesurvivor.org

www.violenceunsilenced.com

www.rainn.org

www.pandys.org

www.1in6.org

www.soulspeakout.org

http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/

Thanks everyone!

reblog for signal boost

(via thoughts-thatfly)

womenwhokickass:

Emi Koyama: Why she kicks ass

• She is a social justice activist/writer/rogue intellectual who often writes and speaks out about feminism, sexual and domestic violence, sex work/trade and trafficking, queer and trans liberation, intersex and disability issues, among others.
• She is the board chair of Survivor Project, the non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the needs of intersex and trans survivors of domestic and sexual violence, as well as the summer 2001 intern for Intersex Society of North America. She is responsible for Eminism.org and other online and offline activist materials.
• She spends her time giving presentations, creating original buttons and ‘zines, reading and sending e-mails, making web sites, among other things, and runs Intersex Initiative.

(via thisisnotjapan)

nextstepcake:

qsaberkeley:

Tuesday, March 12, 7:30-9:00pm • 20 Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley Campus

Ever heard of asexuality and want to learn more? Never heard of asexuality and want to know what the heck we’re talking about?

Come out to our meeting this Tuesday to find out more! We’ll be featuring a short presentation on Asexuality 101 including some major terms and concepts from the asexual community, followed by a panel with several Ace representatives here to talk about their experiences and answer questions.

This event is open to the public.

I’ll be presenting this workshop, so if you’re in the SF bay area come check it out and say hi!

(via ace-muslim)

forgetpolitics:

For anyone who only sees gender and sex in black and white, here’s proof by the lovely humon that nature is just as fluid with representations of gender and sex as we are.

(via idontbelieveinyourhate)

takealookatyourlife:

minionier:

miakosamuio:

Reminder that if you want to blacklist a trigger the best way to to it is

[for example] “* cats”

That way it’ll block not only “cats” but also “tw: cats”, “tw cats”, “trigger warning: cats” and all other tags that have a prefix before the word “cats”.

Story of my life right here.

Signal boosting this because I had no idea. 

(via lantean)

dugstruction:

inksplotched:

huskdawgzilla:

achromatiscope:

sasha-the-genderqueer:

I made this petition to legally recognize non-binary genders

Amen. SIGNAL BOOST.

BOOSTIN’

SIGNING AND BOOSTING, both are important!!!

ok seriously if you were one of those people making a huge deal about a nonbinary option in pokemon (esp. if you are binary/cis) PLEASE PLEASE SIGN AND REBLOG THIS IT IS ACTUALLY A BIG DEAL FOR US PLEASE

(via bittergrapes)

Your Take: LGBT-rights advocates urge the DOJ to investigate the killings of black transgender women.

On Aug. 14 Tiffany Gooden, 19, a black transgender woman, was stabbed to death on Chicago’s West Side. She was found dead just three blocks from where Paige Clay, 23, another black transgender woman, was discovered in April with a gunshot wound to the head. Just four days after Gooden’s killing, Kendall L. Hampton, 26, also a transgender woman, was shot in the parking lot of a Dairy Mart in Cincinnati.

Their murders are jarring reminders of the injustice that transgender women of color face. In fact, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (pdf) has reported that violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people has increased 23 percent from 2009 to 2010, with people of color and transgender women as the most common victims. Of the victims murdered in 2010, 70 percent were people of color, while 44 percent were transgender women.

“Stop killing and beating down my family,” says Sharon Lettman-Hicks, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition. “As a mother, sister and advocate, I am deeply troubled by the violence that plagues our trans sisters. I’m even more saddened by our level of indifference and inaction. Where is the outcry?”

The black and civil rights communities are shamefully silent when victims of violence are black and transgender. That is why the NBJC, the nation’s leading black LGBT civil rights organization; the Hip Hop Caucus, a civil and human rights organization that aims to promote political activism for young U.S. voters, using hip-hop music and culture; and the Trans People of Color Coalition, a national social-justice organization that promotes the interests of transgender people of color, are calling on the Department of Justice to establish a special task force to investigate the serial and systemic murders of countless transgender women of color who are attacked for living their truth. These groups are urging all civil rights leaders and community members to join their appeal to consciousness and action.

In fact, more than 200 black LGBT leaders, activists and allies will gather Sept. 19-22 in Washington, D.C., for the NBJC’s third annual OUT on the Hill Black LGBT Leadership Summit. Along with compelling briefings, a Black LGBT Leaders Day at the White House, Lobbying Day and meetings with members of Congress, OUT on the Hill will convene a groundbreaking panel (pdf) of black transgender women and advocates to address the epidemic of murders against this segment of the black community.

Stories like Gooden’s and Hampton’s represent a larger system of violence toward black transgender women. Their cases are part of an ongoing string of violence and mass murders against transgender women of color. “I want you to meet my family,” says Lettman-Hicks when she recalls the litany of black transgender women who have been killed within the last year. “We should intimately know all these women’s names and their stories.”

In Oakland, Calif., Brandy Martell, 37, was shot on April 29 in her genitals and then her chest after sharing that she was transgender. Coko Williams, another transgender woman of color, was found dead in April on a Detroit block with her throat slashed and one bullet wound. Deoni Jones, 22, a transgender woman, was fatally stabbed on Feb. 2 in Washington, D.C. An altercation between the victim and her attacker broke out at the bus stop, which resulted in the victim being stabbed in the face.

In November 2011, family, friends and community members mourned the loss of Shelley Hilliard, 19, a transgender woman who was reported missing. Weeks later, police were able to identify a burned torso found on Detroit’s East Side as belonging to Hilliard, who was also known as Treasure. Lashai Mclean, 23, a transgender woman, was tragically shot and killed last July in Washington, D.C. Mclean was with another transgender woman in the very early morning when she was gunned down in the District’s Northeast section. She was pronounced dead shortly after being transported to a local hospital.

And those are just some of the attacks we know of. Many more go unreported and garner little to no media attention. Aug. 12 marked the 10-year anniversary of the deaths of Ukea Davis and Stephanie Thomas, two transgender teenagers who were murdered execution style in Washington, D.C. Each of them was shot 10 times in the head and upper body.

By the time medical rescue workers arrived at the corner of 50th and C streets SE, both victims were dead. They died at the same corner where Tyra Hunter, another African-American transgender woman, lay dying after a car crash in 1995 as fire department medical technicians laughed and withdrew emergency care upon discovering that she was transgender.

Davis’ and Thomas’ murders remain unsolved.

“I’m appalled at how little has been done by the black and civil rights communities to fight for and protect transgender women,” says the Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus. “It’s time to break our silence and mobilize the way we did for Occupy Wall Street and Trayvon Martin.”

Some mobilization has been taking place within the black LGBT community. For instance, the TransFaith in Color Conference, an empowerment-and-networking summit for transgender people of color and their allies, recently took place in Charlotte, N.C.

But the black LGBT community cannot and should not have to do this work alone. When transgender women do fight back in an attempt to defend themselves, they risk being criminalized by a system that doesn’t have their best interests in mind. A system that has for centuries ravaged communities of color. A system we must all challenge.

Take CeCe McDonald, for instance, a black transgender hate-crime survivor currently being housed in a men’s facility. After being verbally and physically assaulted, McDonald fatally stabbed her attacker in alleged self-defense. She later accepted a plea deal to second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 41 months in a male prison, where she will be subjected to physical and sexual assault — a blatant example of institutional biases against black and transgender people.

“It is unfortunate that in CeCe’s case, as in so many, the hate crime itself was overlooked entirely,” explains Kylar Broadus, executive director of the Trans People of Color Coalition, an NBJC board member and the first transgender person to testify before the Senate about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. “On top of blaming and prosecuting the victim, she is placed in harm’s way once again. We won’t rest until there is justice for our fallen black trans sisters who are disproportionally targeted and killed because of who they are. We won’t rest until there is justice for CeCe, Tiffany, Kendall, Ukea and Stephanie.”

Enough is enough. We must speak up and speak out. Now. How will you ensure that our family is not forgotten? Learn more about the upcoming OUT on the Hill Black LGBT Leadership Summit here. It’s time to come together and own our collective power.

(Kimberley McLeod, The Root)

Kimberley McLeod is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer and LGBT advocate. She is director of communications and press secretary at the National Black Justice Coalition, as well as creator and editor of Elixher.com, a resource for multidimensional representations of black LGBT women.

The Root aims to foster and advance conversations about issues relevant to the black Diaspora by presenting a variety of opinions from all perspectives, whether or not those opinions are shared by our editorial staff.

(Source: transfeminism, via theirriandjhiquishow-deactivate)

The “romantic-sexual/platonic” love dichotomy leaves no room for the real emotional nuances people experience in their attachments, and I think that it often causes us to live with simplified relationships not because we want to or because we have simple desires and feelings but because we have no experience, cultural context, or language to accommodate a complex social life or set of relationships. This is why language is so important. This is why words and labels matter. How can you have the kind of relationships you want with anyone, if you don’t even have the words to accurately express how you feel? Hell, half the time, people don’t even understand their own feelings and relationship desires because what they feel is not simple at all, but the only relationship framework they know makes everything seem simple and clear cut: romance and sex go together, friendship is separate from both of those things, couplehood/primary partnership is exclusive to romance and sex, etc.

But if we are to accept the possibilities and realities of asexual romance, primary nonsexual/nonromantic love, nonromantic sex and sexual friendship, romantic (nonsexual) friendship, queerplatonic nonsexual relationships and sexual relationships, etc…. we have to drop this way of thinking and speaking about relationships and love in a romantic-sexual/platonic dichotomous way. None of those “complex” relationships fit into that model

—  “Platonic love” is a problematic term. | The Thinking Asexual (via ace-muslim)

(via southpawscopic)

We are not corrupt. We have no need to be corrupt. We have no families and our own needs are limited. We are contented people. I know it is very difficult to defeat them, but everyone should contribute for the betterment of society. We are getting educated now. People used to make fun of us, but now they have started to respect us. —  

Pakistani transgender woman candidate to contest polls.

Sanam Fakir completed 10th grade in school and now runs a charity, which includes a computer centre for members of her community.

More power to Sanam Fakir. This makes me so happy. For those who did not know: The Supreme Court in Pakistan already rules that members of the trans* community are entitled to every right enjoyed by other citizens.

(via mehreenkasana)

In case you missed this awesome news.

(via mehreenkasana)

(via theirriandjhiquishow-deactivate)