All posts by fontfolly

About fontfolly

I've loved reading for as long as I can remember. I write fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and nonfiction. For more than 20 years I edited and published an anthropomorphic sci-fi/space opera literary fanzine. I attend and work on the staff for several anthropormorphics, anime, and science fiction conventions. I live near Seattle with my wonderful husband, still completely amazed that he puts up with me at all. View all posts by fontfolly →

What’s there to be proud about?

June 24, 2015lifeculture, gay, lgbt, pride, truthfontfolly

I hear or read it at least once each year as Pride weekend approaches (or shortly afterward when people post pictures of their local Pride parade): what’s there to be proud of? Usually followed up with comments to the effect that if we are born this way, then there isn’t anything we’ve done to be gay, so why be proud? Why can’t we just be ourselves and go about our day?

The answer is quite simple: because every moment of our lives—from before we were old enough to understand—society at large (including very nearly every single person who raised us, took care of us, taught us, lived beside us, et cetera) has told us again and again that “just being ourselves” is shameful. We have been told that our very beings were wrong. Our selves are a sickness to be cured, or a sin to be despised, or a shameful secret to be hidden. We’ve been bullied, harassed, tormented, shunned, and beaten because of who we are. We have been told (and often shown violently) that our lives don’t matter. We’ve been told we can’t love. We’ve been told that those of us who do fine love deserve what happens to us when the bashers and haters decide to make an example of us.

In a world that insidiously and relentlessly drums that message into us—driving many to attempt suicide as children (and sadly for many to succeed), browbeating us into hating ourselves—just openly being our selves is no small feat.

Merely surviving all of that and managing to piece together lives of authenticity is a monumental victory over incredible odds.

That’s what we have to be proud of.

I used to react to this question by just thinking that the person was clueless. And certainly cluelessness is a factor. But I’ve also realized that it’s just another manifestation of that most basic form of homophobia. “Can’t you just be who you are and not make a big deal about it” is exactly the same as “why do you have to shove it in our faces all the time” which is the equivalent of “go back into hiding where you belong.”

The saddest part of this is that those people don’t think they are being homophobic at all. And they never think about that fact that straight people “shove their sexuality” in everyone else’s face all the time. Have pictures of your spouse, significant other, or children on your desk, wall, or phone’s home screen? Mention your wife or husband in casual conversation? Comment on how hot a particular actor or actress is? Routinely ask about family discounts? Expect that, of course, your spouse will be included in the company health insurance plan? Invite us to your wedding or your kid’s straight wedding? Show us pictures of yours or your kid’s straight wedding? Ever use the phrase “no homo”?

Since we get accused of shoving our sexuality in your face if we merely casually mention the existence of our significant other, we get to count all of those things as you shoving your sexuality in our faces. Straight pride happens 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, yet you begrudge queer people (trans, lesbian, bisexual, gay, genderqueer, polyamorous, asexual, pansexual, gender fluid, intersexed, gender neutral, and those who love and support us) a parade once a year?

Why am I proud?

I’m proud because they tried to drown us in lies, and we’ve risen above to reveal our truth. I’m proud because they have beaten and tortured us in the name of faith, and we’ve found the strength to show the world our love. I’m proud because they tried to smother us with fear, but we found hope in the most unlikely of places. I’m proud because we have endured hate, which has taught us how to love better. I’m proud because we have fled the shadows, and showed the world our light. I’m proud because no matter how many times we’ve been knocked down, we have gotten back up.

I’m proud because we’re all still here, we’re unstoppable, and we’re beautiful!

Oppressed oppressors, part 3

June 23, 2015cultureculture, hate crimes, hate groups, haters, lgbt, news, religious right, rightwing, terror, wingnutsfontfolly

Mat Staver is the head of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel, featured speaker at several Values Voter Summits over the years, a man who has gone to court many times defending laws that discriminate against gay people, and someone who as recently as June has testified to congress about why gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered people shouldn’t be included in anti-discrimination law, and has many times on his radio show praised laws in places like Russia and Uganda that criminalize gay people and even talking about gay people. For example, last year he was on another radio show, ranting about those Christians who have said that gay rights and marriage equality are losing battles. “To assume that you can go against the created order is hubris, it’s arrogance, it’s dangerous and it is not something in which we can simply say, ‘the battle’s over, we need to figure out how to coexist.’ There is no coexistence.”

“There is no coexistence.” If he insists that his side can’t co-exist with us, that’s another way of saying either we have to cease to exist or he does, right? And I’m pretty sure he isn’t suggesting that all true believers (his side) should commit mass suicide.

When Staver says “there is no coexistence” that means he’s ultimately willing to kill. The reason Staver’s organization encourages things like Uganda’s kill-the-gays laws, and talks up the rhetoric of how dangerous we are to society is because he believes we should not be allowed to exist. Which means killing us. Or at least, scaring us with a credible enough threat of death that we all go back into the closet.

Just like the people who regularly go to Seattle’s old gayborhood (Police investigating weekend hate crimes on Capitol Hill) every weekend (‘Not one more’ — March strikes back at anti-queer violence on Capitol Hill), the aim isn’t to kill each and every queer person, it’s to scare the rest of us back into the closet. When rightwing Texas preacher Rick Scarborough announces that he’s willing to be burned to death to oppose gay marriage, he doesn’t mean that he’s going to set himself on fire; he wants to whip up fear and anger so that people who agree with him will do horrible things to some of us to frighten us into silence.

It’s the same tactics used by the hate leaders who radicalized Dylann Roof into shooting nine innocent people in a church in Charleston: making members of the majority believe that a historically oppressed minority somehow has all the power. Roof told the lone adult survivor of his shooting, “I have to do it. You’re raping our women and overrunning our country.” In a country where white police officers gun down unarmed black children in the street without facing murder charges, he believes that black people are the ones threatening the existence of white people.

Similarly, in a country where:

1500 queer children are bullied into committing suicide every year,
where thousands of queer children are thrown out onto the streets by so-called Christian parents whose religious leaders have told them they have to show tough love,
where the authorities don’t investigate those parents for child neglect,
where the numbers of homicides of LGBT people have climbed to record highs,
where more than half of hate-motivated murder victims are trans people of color,
where state legislators are rushing to enact religious-belief based “right to discriminate” laws,
where in most states it is perfectly legal for employers to fire someone simply because they think the person might be gay (and where landlords can evict gay tenants or refuse to rent to them, et cetera),
where queer people are 2.4 times more likely to be victims of hate crimes than jews, and 2.6 times more likely to be victims of hate crimes than muslims,
where the number of hate crimes against all groups except lesbian, gays, trans, and bi people is going down while all categories of anti-queer hate crimes remain the some or are rising,
where the overwhelming majority of elected officials at the federal, state, and local level are Christian (far out of proportion to their percentage of the population),
where state and federal tax dollars are funneled into “faith-based” charity organizations that are often allowed to discriminate in how they administer those tax-funded activities,
where religious schools are often supported by tax dollars diverted from public schools,
where high school kids are threatened with expulsion for wearing “Gay OK” t-shirts to school after a bunch of Christian bullies beat a gay classmate (but the bullies weren’t punished),
where a public school teacher responding to an incident of anti-gay bullying read a book about acceptance to his class, then was forced to resign for “promoting homosexuality,”
where Christian organizations rally and raise money to combat anti-bullying policies unless said policies include exemptions that allow their kids to bully gay kids in the name of their faith,

…Christians are claiming that queers are persecuting them.

Seriously? Not being able to bully, discriminate against, and torment their gay neighbors is oppression?

“I can’t be a bigot, because…”

June 22, 2015societybigots, prejudice, societyfontfolly

“How can someone be racist if they have friends who are Black?”

The same way serial killers can have friends who are alive.

— BrownBlaze (@brownblaze) February 20, 2015

When this tweet showed up in my twitter timeline (‘”How can someone be racist if they have friends who are Black?” The same way serial killers can have friends who are alive.’), I nearly spit my coffee all over my keyboard. It’s flippant, and an overly pedantic sort of person will try to argue about how bad an analogy it is, but it’s a brilliant way to encapsulate the idea that people are more than capable of contradictory behavior. And it’s funny—sometimes we need a little gallows humor to struggle with big, horrific events.

Those of us who are queer have to deal with the classic deflection from homophobic people all the time, “I don’t hate gay people, I have gay friends!” Just as a lot of us who have been caught up in the Hugo/Sad Puppy wank have been rolling our eyes about one of the leaders of said homophobic, misogynist, racist group who claims he can’t be racist because he’s married to a person of color. As if there has never been a male chauvinist who was married to a woman… Continue reading “I can’t be a bigot, because…” →

Yes, I know that many dads are great…

June 21, 2015societyfather's day, fathers, holidayfontfolly

I linked to my post from a couple years ago about why some of us don’t feel like celebrating Father’s Day. But my particular reasons are exactly why I do think that people who have great dads need to tell their fathers (whether it’s their biological father, step-father, adoptive father, single-mom who had to be all the parents, or two mommies, or two daddies) how much you appreciate the great things that they did for you.

Because bad dads like mine are proof that being great isn’t automatic, it isn’t easy, and it isn’t guaranteed. So, here are a couple of appreciations:

I Am The Man My Father Built.

5 Things My Husband Teaches Our Daughter About Working Parents.

Daddy Issues – After years of thinking my father couldn’t understand his gay son, I was surprised to find he accepted me in ways I never could have imagined possible. (Yes, this was in Friday links already, still good!)

Chad And Jeff’s Story From The Let Love Define Family Series.

The Correct Spelling Of Father:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here

Honest Conversations: Fathers and Their Gay Children:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here

Who raised the kid?

June 21, 2015societyfamily, father's day, fathers, issues, news, wingnutsfontfolly

It’s impossible at this time of year to avoid all the memes and heartfelt testimonials and emotionally manipulative articles about dads. Which is great for people who have wonderful dads and are happy to be reminded about how great a good father can be. It’s not so great for people who are grieving the loss of a father they loved. And it’s not so great for those of us who had terrible fathers.

I was lucky enough to have two incredible, wonderful, and loving grandfathers as well as an incorrigible (but still loving) great-grandfather who were all three very involved in my life throughout my formative years. And one of those wonderful grandfathers, my mom’s father, was her adoptive father. Not being her biological father didn’t diminish one iota the love he gave my mom and her sister (and me and the other grandkids). He did everything a dad was supposed to do and more.

Similarly, my great-grandfather was my grandma’s biological father, but he was also a step-dad to grandma’s oldest two brothers. Great-grandma was a 28-year-old widow with two young boys when she met and fell in love with great-grandpa (who, I should point out was only a 16-year-old farm hand). But even though he wasn’t that much older than those two kids, he did his best to be as good a father to them as he was to the other kids that he and great-grandma had together.

So I get more than a little angry when people (or stories or movies or TV shows) imply (or sometimes come right out and say) that step-parents or adoptive parents aren’t a kid’s “real parents.”

Which is why I want to share this little story (and angry op-ed) posted by Dan Savage earlier in the week: Brian Brown Suggests Terry and I Stole Our Son from His Biological Parents. Brian Brown is the head of the odious anti-gay National Organization for Marriage. Dan Savage is a national syndicated sex advice columnist and gay activist. But Dan and his husband, Terry, adopted their son as part of an open adoption years ago, and have raised that child while allowing (and encouraging him) to keep in contact with the biological mother who was a homeless street kid when she got pregnant. As Dan points out, there are far more orphaned children who need families in this country than there are straight couples looking to adopt. When you exclude unmarried people or lesbian/gay couples or other “non-traditional” families from the adoption process, the choice you are making is to leave those children with no parents at all.

It isn’t a choice of straight parents vs queer parents, or a mommy-and-daddy vs a single parent. It’s a choice of these so-called non-traditional parents or no parents. And note about the fact that not one but two traditional couples turned down the baby before Dan and Terry’s adoption paperwork was completed. So, the only people who deprived that kid of a “traditional” family of genitally-opposite parents were straight people.

I’m not a parent. I’ve never had kids and never adopted. But if I were a parent, and Brian Brown had come into my house and told me that he thought my child should be forcibly taken away from me just because I’m gay, I would have said a whole lot worse than what Terry said.

Weekend Update – 6/20/2015

June 20, 2015newshate crime, news, wingnutsfontfolly

I know how easy it is to obsess over a horrific story like this. But the nine people who were murdered in a hateful act of racist terrorism in a historic church this week deserve to be remembered. And we can’t solve problems like racism if we don’t confront the problem.

Charleston shooting victim Tywanza Sanders ‘died trying to protect his elderly aunt.’

Why South Carolina’s Confederate flag isn’t at half-staff after church shooting.

NRA Dude Identifies Real Charleston Shooter. Surprise, It Was The Black Pastor!

Black People Aren’t Making Things Up: The Science Behind ‘Racial Battle Fatigue’.

Relatives of victims offer forgiveness at bond hearing for suspected Charleston gunman.

Charleston church shooting massacre: Who are the victims?

Republican State Representative Will Introduce Bill To Remove Confederate Flag From South Carolina Capitol.

Anything But Race: Right-Wing Pundits In Denial Mode Following Charleston Shooting.

Southern Baptist’s Russell Moore: It’s time to take down the Confederate flag.

Friday Links (toxic bigotry week)

June 19, 2015bloggingfriday, friday links, links, newsfontfolly

Created by Maria Fabrizio, WordlessNews.Com

It’s Friday! It’s the third Friday in June. Happy Queer Pride Month! I had planned on calling this week’s Friday Links something like “adorable octopus edition” but there is way too much serious and depressing news, and I left a lot of it out!

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily:

This Week in Racism

Too often we give lots of press to the hateful killers who commit these crimes, when we should be remembering the victims. There are pictures of each of the nine people killed in the church in Charleston, with some biographical details. I needed more than one kleenex: These Are The Victims Of The Charleston Church Shooting.

Why Recognizing The Charleston Church Shooting As An Act Of Racially Motivated Terrorism Is Only The First Step.

Police Search For Man Suspected Of Killing 9 At South Carolina Church.

For Charleston’s Emanuel A.M.E. Church, shooting is another painful chapter in rich history.

Is South Carolina Just Gonna Fly That Confederate Flag Today or What?

“he just said ‘I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.'”

An Emotional Stewart Drops the Comedy to Talk Charleston: ‘We Still Won’t Do Jackshit.’

Shot fired into Saint Matthew Church in Memphis.

Tip from Kings Mountain florists led to Charleston shooting suspect’s arrest. Not just a tip: she called police from her car and kept following him, giving police updates along the way!

Larry Wilmore smacks down Rachel Dolezal: “Sorry lady, you are white, you don’t get an opinion on this. This is not a Buzzfeed quiz”.

Rachel Dolezal Isn’t the Most Important Race Story in Spokane: The Media Circus over One Woman Is Distracting from the Underlying Issues That Need Addressing.

This Week in Sexism

How Tor Books Threw Its Women Employees Under The Bus.

Forget Redefining Beauty: This Fat Chick Just Wants Some Nice Clothes.

News for queers and our allies:

This Trans Man’s Breast Cancer Nightmare Exemplifies The Problem With Transgender Health Care.

Daddy Issues – After years of thinking my father couldn’t understand his gay son, I was surprised to find he accepted me in ways I never could have imagined possible.

What Religious People Actually Think About Using ‘Religious Liberty’ To Justify Anti-Gay Discrimination. 59 percent of white mainline Protestants, 63 percent of non-white Protestants, and 64 percent of Catholics reject “religious liberty” bills.

‘Oranges, Baby Powder, Handcuffs And Duct Tape’: Inside The Trial That May End The Gay ‘Cure’.

Southern Baptist Manual Offers Suggestions on How to Get Around LGBT Anti-Discrimination Laws. Because, obviously, Jesus wants them to disobey the law and discriminate against their neighbors. Because when he said “love your neighbor as you love yourself” he didn’t mean literally love them…

You Have Two Men To Thank For The Greatest Strides In LGBT Representation On TV.

Gay Marriage Isn’t About Assimilation. My Engagement Was a Radical Act.

Don’t Listen To Same-Sex Marriage Foes: It Was Always About Hating On The Gays.

California attorney general moves to dismiss ‘shoot the gays’ ballot proposal.

‘As a Christian, I am Sorry:’ Evangelical Pastor’s Reflections on Attending First Pride Parade.

Southern Baptist President Bravely Pledges Resistance Against Non-Existent Forced-Marriage Threat.

‘Israel wouldn’t be able to “pinkwash” the oppression of Palestinians if the Palastinian Authority and the other Muslim nations that surround Israel treated their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender citizens at least as well as or better than Israel treats its own sexual minorities. The treatment of LGBT people in the Arab/Muslim world is “barbaric, anti-gay, and backwards”—that’s not Israeli spin, that’s a fact. If you think “pinkwashing” is wrong—if you think it’s actually a thing—then you shouldn’t just be calling for a boycott of Israel. You should be calling for better treatment of LGBT people in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and what’s left of Syria.’

How Schools Justify Canceling Valedictorian Speeches About Coming Out.

Meet Ryan Anderson, The Anti-LGBT ‘Scholar’ Peddling Junk Science To National Media.

What Are the Sounds of Transphobic Dinosaurs Dying?

Richard Land Bigotsplains Why Acceptance of Gay Rights is Growing.

Black gay men face shocking bigotry.

MARRIAGE NEWS WATCH: 1. The president doesn’t get to veto Supreme Court rulings. 2. Rick Santorum will never be president.

The obligatory Sad Puppies/Hugo Awards update:

Infoxicated Corner: ALL THESE THINGS ARE TRUE: Saumya Arya Haas. “It is true. As in many SF/F tales, a world is at risk. The world of “tradition,” the world where straight, cis, white guys are the inheritors of the throne, the world where women and minorities have their identities dictated and blunted by a dominant narrative: that world is gravely at risk.”

The “Heinlein Couldn’t Win a Hugo Today” crowd is now boycotting Heinlein’s publisher.

Puppies Crying Bitter Tears.

The Blending Puppies.

I am a real person and I stand with Irene Gallo.

Final Words on #Hugowank.

Thoughts on toxic bigotry.

And other news:

JACKASS OF THE WEEK: CHRISTOPHER MIMS.

Happy News!

Christian Homeowner Threatens Neighbor Over ‘Relentlessly Gay’ Rainbow Yard Lamps, Because Children; Homeowner Promises More Rainbows. “Needless to say… I need more rainbows… Many, many more rainbows….”

Pete Buttigieg, Mayor Of South Bend, Indiana, Comes Out As Gay.

Meet The First Gay Couple To Graduate Together From The Boston Police Academy.

Boy Who Lost Stuffed Tiger At Airport Finds Tiger Stayed Very Busy.

Things I wrote:

Hugo Ballot Reviews: Novella.

Sincerely (up) yours,.

Hugo Ballot Reviews: Graphic Story.

The Best Kind of Books Are Magic Books – more of why I love sf/f.