inspired by an old blog post and a New Year's meme, i decided to document the last decade of my journey re: identity as a #Black, #Queer, #Nonbinary & #Asexual person in the form of a video...
whether we want it to be or not, #BlackHair is often Political, especially in its’ natural, unstraightened state. combine this with #Blackness itself...
so i finally got to see Black Panther again ( #WAKANDAFOREVER AHHHHHH–) and am now at a Starbucks basking in the afterglow of the movie, about to attempt to herd my thoughts into a more coherent cacophony of words than exists in my head at present. wish me luck.
cw: rape apologism …so i just had lunch with someone who is essentially a random woman who chased me down at a train station last week because she admired my locs and wanted me to start locs for her. had this woman not been a black woman, had she not been an older black woman, had she not been literally beaming from ear to ear just looking at my locs, so earnest about wanting to start locs herself and having nowhere to turn– had it not been for all those things AND had we not been in Japan, i wouldn’t have given this lady the time of day. especially since she made me miss my train. but she was and we are and so there i was, meeting this over zealous woman at a cafe for lunch because #AfroHairSolidarityInAsia✊? if only the conversation had steered clear of politics, things would have been fine. i…
as usual, i find myself turning to YouTube as a resource for information only to be reminded that…. YouTube is So Damn White. most things non-binary and / or trans are So Damn White. a search for “non-binary” and “testosterone” turns up almost nothing but skinny, short haired, white, non-binary people, none of whom i can really see myself in. which is nothing new. that’s part of the reason i’m on YouTube in the first place. beyond that, a bigger problem that i find myself faced with is that the very image / concept of “androgyny” or stereotypical “non-binary appearance” is inherently linked to whiteness. i want people to pause before they misgender me (seeing as how they will inevitably misgender me regardless) and the best way to bring about that is, presumably, androgynous appearance. however, androgyny feels unobtainable to me as a black person, because no matter what i…
as usual, i find myself turning to YouTube as a resource for information only to be reminded that…. YouTube is So Damn White. most things non-binary and / or trans are So Damn White. a search for “non-binary” and “testosterone” turns up almost nothing but skinny, short haired, white, non-binary people, none of whom i can really see myself in. which is nothing new. that’s part of the reason i’m on YouTube in the first place.
Asexual Awareness Week is a week set aside in October to not only show your pride as an asexual person, but to help raise awareness of asexuality and asexual people. sadly, some of the people who are most in need of increased awareness and resources are those who go unnoticed even within the asexual community itself. it’s no secret that the Asexual Community, particularly in English-speaking countries, has a Whiteness Problem. or at least, i hope that it isn’t. there is more often than not a distinct lack of racial / ethnic diversity in asexual communities and spaces, which is why it ought to surprise no one that there is also a lack of resources and even awareness among fellow aces about the unique and diverse struggles and needs of aces of color. with the bulk of asexual awareness, resources and discourse revolving around white faces and common narratives that…
…soooo, i just had a 1.5 hour conversation with a random Nigirian guy at Starbucks and i need to let off some steam. so, as you’d predict, i met random Nigirian guy completely randomly when i got off a train one night after work and he came chasing after me to strike up a conversation. me being the overly nice person that i am who finds it hard to say “i’m tired, go away.” ended up engaged in a short conversation with him. he seemed like a nice enough guy and i couldn’t help but feel for his situation of being the sole non-Japanese person at his workplace and not having anyone to talk to because he can’t speak Japanese. when he asked to keep in touch after i finally got up the nerve to tell him i had to go i obliged, although i knew well enough by now not to…
anonymous said: This is probably a complex issue, so apologies in advance if I have to send multiple asks, but I’m white l, and recently I have been identifying as Maverique, it is the best way I’ve found to describe my gender and it sits very well for me, but I had someone who was a POC tell me it was appropriative of POC cultures and was basically just ‘white people taking it and making it okay to id as a third gender’ and, while I disagreed with them and it was very upsetting, (pt 1) I know it is not my place to argue with them over what is and isn’t cultural appropriation. I’m not really sure what to do, because they told me it would be racist of me to continue id’ing as maverique and that I should use neutrois or something similar instead, but neutral terms aren’t…
blaqueer: gaywrites: Yesterday in Philadelphia, LGBTQ activists and city officials gathered to kick off Pride month by raising a new official flag. It’s the traditional rainbow flag we all know, with two additions: a black stripe and a brown stripe. The flag is part of a local initiative to address a history of racism in the city’s LGBTQ neighborhood and community groups. It’s the first time an American city has embraced the flag with brown and black stripes. G Philly covered a leaked video last year that showed a White local club owner repeatedly describing Black patrons as n-words. Backlash to the video, combined with the collective’s ongoing activism, ultimately led to a city council bill that gives the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations the authority to penalize discriminatory businesses. Amber Hikes, a queer Black woman, now heads the Office of LGBT Affairs, and the office’s new commission includes mainly…
