I apologize for being a little MIA for the past month or so. Its been hectic at the small non-profit I work at. Of course I work at a non-profit as my day job, I'm a queer lady gay boi. Let's just say its been busy in my non-profitty world. Support your local non-profits! Moving on...here's my five things to know this week list.
1. I was looking up the word "lesbro" in the Urban Dictionary and the top definition was heterosexual man who is friends with lots of lesbians, the opposite of a fag hag. However, the fifth definition - the one I use - says, "A lesbian who is close friends with another lesbian in the same way that two dudes are bros." I have been building my lesbro contingency and its been good.
2. Gay brunch: is basically brunch with two or more gay people, and Mimosas and Bloody Marys. Usually between the hours of 11am - 2pm. I've designated Saturdays to be "big gay brunch" day! Make it so.
3. The favorite and beloved "pop culture website that plays for our team" AfterEllen will be no more by this Friday. After fourteen years of being on the interwebs they will shut their virtual doors. They will continue to have the website up and have the articles archived and maybe every once in a blue moon someone will post a new article. Other then that, we'll miss our top 15 Hottest Butch Women (Identified) List. Here's a great article talking about it: Eulogy for the Living: On losing AfterEllen and Queer Women's Spaces.
4. One of the Royals came out the other day Lord Ivar Mountbatten. Congratulations and happy coming out!
5. The next big legal fight, strangely, is the ability to use the bathroom that matches a person''s gender identity. Marriage now bathrooms. What is going on with those Alt-right Conservative Republican folks!? Can we address things like the lack of skilled labor, or the crushing student debt that Millennials and Gen Zers are or will be experiencing when they graduate university. You know, issues that really matter. Bedrooms now bathrooms. Ugh! Let the fight begin, we are ready to "gird our loins." The Supreme Court issued a stay for a school to continue to block a boy (who was born a girl) from using the boys restroom. Here's an article about it: School board, sued by transgender student, asks for Supreme Court review in bathroom case
Last year in 2015, Buzzfeed put out a video exploring what "Female Masculinity" meant to a group of people who identified on different ends of the gender and female masculinity spectrum.
Trish Bendix also wrote a brief piece along with the video Titled the Spectrum of Female Masculinity.
There's also a book written by Judith Halberstam called Female Masculinity, that explores the idea of what that means. Here's a short description from Amazon, "Masculinity without men. In Female Masculinity Judith Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offered a distinct alternative to it for well over two hundred years. Providing the first full-length study on this subject, Halberstam catalogs the diversity of gender expressions among masculine women from nineteenth-century pre-lesbian practices to contemporary drag king performances.."
Masculinity is not exclusively male. Cumberbund is feeling the love.
1. Trans Rights
Moving ad about transgender bathroom rights, that were run on Fox News on the last night of the GOP Convention. And that's how you change hearts and minds. More info on FairnessUSA.org
2. Coming Out
Parents Throw a Coming Out Party for their 17 year old daughter. These parents are winning when it comes to parenting. Bravo!
3. Remember Pulse Orlando and the Survivors
CBS News created and featured a page remembering the Forty-nine who were killed during the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando. They also added the poem by Patience Carter, who was shot in the leg. "The Guilt of Being Alive is Heavy."
4. Hunger Crisis in the LGBT Community
In the New York Times there was an article, "Hunger Crisis in the LGBT Community," written by Roni Rabin who reported that many people in the LGBT community were unable to afford food to feed themselves and their families, at least once in the past year. A new report on hunger notes that 1 in 4 LGBT adults go hungry compared to 1 in 6 heterosexual identified people in the same situation.
5. United Methodist Still Trying to Figure it Out
The United Methodist Church elected its first openly lesbian bishop, Rev. Karen Oliveto the senior pastor of Glide Memorial Church in SF, was elect by the Western Jurisdiction Conferences and the UMC Council of Bishops are losing their minds over it. Read more about it here.
Those are my Top 5 Things you should know for the week of July 18th!
-- CV