Was she going to slap you because you never in any way made him gay in the actual books, taking zero risks/doing absolutely nothing for gay characters in literature, and only announcing your “authorial intent” afterwards for a cheap shot at looking like an ~ally~
^^^
Gay people are just normal people. We are not told about any of the Hogwarts professors love lives, other than Snape, and it would be completely out of character for Dumbledore to walk around telling everyone about his sexuality.
Did you want her to make him dress in glittery platform boots, a crop top, and decorate his office in rainbow flags to make it more obvious for you? Would that be enough of a stereotype to appease you people? Or what? Please tell me. I’d like to know how you think a gay character is supposed to be portrayed.
And did you miss the Grindelwald chapters in the ‘actual books’? Or was that also not obvious enough for you? Did Dumbledore need to whisper “always” wistfully in order for you to connect that he had romantic feelings for Grindelwald? Maybe you are American and need them to gaze longingly into each others eyes with awkward close ups of their fingers almost grazing each other that Hollywood thinks means ‘true love’.
It didn’t fit into his relationship to Harry to ever say “I’m gay”, and so it was not stated explicitly (you might have noticed the book was told from Harry Potter’s perspective).
The point is though, that he is a homosexual, well respected, powerful, and very loved wizard- and his sexuality doesn’t matter because no one else thinks it matters. a.k.a. no one cares that he loves men, and that is wonderful.
Amen.
I like reblogging this every time it shows up on my dash because seriously.
No, to so much of that response.
First, how appropriately PATRONIZING to say “you people” to a queer person being upset by a lack of representation of queer characters.
Just because some people inferred that Dumbledore is gay from the chapters about his friendship (yeah, remember they used the word friendship a LOT? Not relationship) doesn’t mean that he’s a gay character. It adds a whole new level of homophobia when, even in a fictional, magical world, the gay character is forced into the closet and doesn’t feel safe enough to come out.
You see, the majority of the major characters have romantic subplots, but somehow that escapes Dumbledore’s character.
He doesn’t need to be a stereotype to be gay, but being so doesn’t matter in terms of representation if it isn’t in ANY WAY REPRESENTED, and it isn’t. Stating it outside of the world of the book doesn’t change that it was never an identity or trait in the book itself.
It could have been mentioned at a number of points in the book, even off-handedly in discussing a relationship, a romantic one, with Grindelwald. But it wasn’t.
So, it isn’t that no one cares because he’s so well-respected, especially since it takes minimal time for people to lose respect and think he’s gone senile, but because he isn’t out to the wizarding world.
Try again, apologists.
Also, “We are not told about any of the Hogwarts professors love lives” err… excuse you, Hagrid and Madame Maxine, Filch and Pince were just good friends? I could also mention Lupin and Tonks here, who have a very prominent love story. Sure Dumbledore’s relationship with Grindelwald is “questionable”, but it’s really not obvious either.
On tumblr, polerin elaborates:
There’s some really nasty shit lurking not too far under the surface of some of the drawings. In some cases, like the ones where they switch clothes, it’s not even too deep.
Making choices of clothing based in femininity/femme-ness on a dood isn’t a context free choice. Doubly so when you are mocking something. It relies on the deep history of cissexism and oppositional sexism in our culture. Even if that’s not the intent of the artist, it is impossible to look at these drawings and not have all the jokes about guys wearing women’s clothing or “acting like a girl” come up. That’s the POINT of these drawings.
And that point pins trans women to the wall as a side effect of (rightly) critiquing the sexism in comics.
Despite the best of intentions, the vibe comes across as really anti-femme, anti-trans women, and ultimately, anti-women. After all, if we’re unable to talk about the mistreatment of women without bringing men into the picture, what does that really say about us? If we’re unable to talk about the mistreatment of women without considering how it effects all women, what does that really say about us?
However. Putting men in women’s clothing and poses can quickly and easily slot into homophobic and transphobic ideas about the “proper” way to do masculinity and the obligation to do so. As said above, even if the artist’s intentions are pure, the image can still provoke bigoted reactions in the audience. Art is not created in a vacuum.
The Hawkeye Initiative is challenging the connection between femininity and sexualization, but it’s like a hydra - while you’re cutting off the “women shouldn’t be considered sex objects” head, the “sexualized men must only be doing it for the gay male gaze” and “men acting like women is unnatural and wrong” heads are coming up behind you.
I wasn’t originally going to reblog or post about this because the original post is by my friend (girlinfourcolors who I think is awesome) and Escher Girls is mentioned, and I don’t want people to think I’m talking about this because I’m jealous or anything (in fact I promoted the HI).
But ultimately, this is something that’s been bothering me lately too, and that means enough to me that I want to say something. I chose to reblog both the above posts because I think they both say important things, but to avoid a conflict of interest (and an endorsement of everything in the posts which could risk a derail), I just snipped the parts that concerned what I wanted to talk about.
First, I want to say, yes I did post some of the stuff that may be also problematic. I was operating by the same “I post all fan art submitted to me” principle I use for the redraws, AND I’m also not immune to feeling pressure to appear to like something that’s popular. :\ I admit that fully.
And I like the Hawkeye Initiative and it’s goals. This is not about every picture, it’s about some of them. Specifically the ones where the only source of humor seems to be that Hawkeye is dressed in a crop top & high heels (this particular one was of a civilian character, not a superheroine), or that he’s kissing Batman, and other posts like those. Such posts make me uncomfortable because I thought the point was to show that Hawkeye (dressed as Hawkeye) in a pose would look ridiculous, not that a man in high heels or a crop top would look funny. Hawkeye in thong battle armor (like women) shows how ridiculous that armor is, but if he’s just in tight pants, a crop top and heels, or kissing another man… the humour is coming from “oh my god a man in women’s clothing” and “oh my god a man being sexual with another man”, and I think that’s pretty problematic. Catwoman kissing Batman isn’t wrong just because Hawkeye looks wrong kissing Batman to some people.
I know I have a platform, so I often am hesitant to blog about these things because I don’t want people to think I’m preaching from the mount, or saying that something is inherently wrong or broken because of an issue in it (which people seem to assume a lot about what I write), and again, I like the Hawkeye Initiative. But I’m also a trans woman, and I’ve gotten literal abuse and threats on my safety because people thought “a man in high heels” or “a man wearing women’s clothing!”, and this sort of humor makes me really uncomfortable. It took my friend speaking up for me to realize I should speak up too.
I’m not telling anybody what to do, but just think about where the source of your humour comes from before you do one of these pictures. That’s all. :)
This is your annual reminder that The Salvation Army threatened to close all of their New York City soup kitchens if they were going to be forced to stop discriminating against their gay employees. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to donate to any charity that would use the hungry as a bargaining chip to get what it wants. There are better charities to donate to. There are charities that donate 100% of their money to the people they’re trying to help, rather than taking some of that money and using it to fight against gay rights (as the Salvation Army does.) There are charities that don’t state on their website that homosexuals are morally obligated to live a life of celibacy. There are charities that accept everyone and help EVERYONE.
For more information on how exactly the Salvation Army is anti-gay and, just in general, horrible, you can click here.
And please, if you’re my friend, or if you know any gay people, or even if you’re just not an asshole, PLEASE stop going bargain-hunting at the Salvation Army. And stop donating your money to them. There are better places for clothes. There are better places to donate.
Also, Salvation Army’s anti-trans policies have literally killed at least one woman.
Please donate to Amnesty International, Goodwill or Doctors Without Borders instead
Important reminder for this time of year!
Shout out to the homeless queers youths, jailed trans women, queer people of color struggling with intersecting oppression, and poor rural queer kids who survive homophobic abuse from their communities while Katy Perry gets recognition for their struggles.
![fabfemmeboy:
i-found-you-justine-time:
everythingcominguprainbowcats:
saynathespiffy:
picturesinhismind:
blacksheepboy-:
hopeboysisacheapthing:
did-you-kno:
Source
You SHOULD know this, because it is INCREDIBLY important and something that wasn’t acknowledged until very, VERY recently.
(I did a history project on this in Y9. We got to do something from the 20th century; everyone else did, like, Marilyn Monroe, and I read a translation of Moi, Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel and then did my project on that. Cheerful, no, but important to know about, yes.)
whaaaaat, seriously?!
In 1950, East Germany abolished Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, whereas West Germany kept them and even had them confirmed by its Constitutional Court.
Well, that’s horrifying.
Oh my god
Homosexual concentration camp prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution.[7] Reparations and state pensions available to other groups were refused to gay men, who were still classified as criminals — the Nazi anti-gay law was not repealed until 1994, although both East and West Germany liberalized their criminallaws against adult homosexuality in the late 1960s.
“Gay Holocaust” survivors could be re-imprisoned for “repeat offences”, and were kept on the modern lists of “sex offenders”. Under the Allied Military Government of Germany, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment, regardless of the time spent in concentration camps. (X)
Also worth mentioning that homosexuals are still largely unacknowledged as victims of the Holocaust even within circles where they should know better. For example, in the Holocaust Museum in DC and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, gay deaths are acknowledged only in passing and there is not a single picture of a “man of the pink triangle” - only of an empty ballroom that had once held a gay dance club. When Yad Vashem was completely redone in 2005, gay groups pressed for inclusion alongside other non-Jewish groups such as the disabled, Roma, etc., and numerous senior-level officials and the Rabbinate condemned such requests for inclusion, with some going so far as to suggest that the homosexuals were German criminals and therefore did not belong in the same category as the Jews who had done nothing wrong. When the memorial to gays in the Holocaust was unveiled in Berlin four years ago, senior members of Yad Vashem condemned it and, in particular, its proximity to the memorial for Jewish victims of the Shoah.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ly5qfpM4lo1qkvbwso1_500.png)
everythingcominguprainbowcats:
You SHOULD know this, because it is INCREDIBLY important and something that wasn’t acknowledged until very, VERY recently.
(I did a history project on this in Y9. We got to do something from the 20th century; everyone else did, like, Marilyn Monroe, and I read a translation of Moi, Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel and then did my project on that. Cheerful, no, but important to know about, yes.)
whaaaaat, seriously?!
In 1950, East Germany abolished Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, whereas West Germany kept them and even had them confirmed by its Constitutional Court.
Well, that’s horrifying.
Oh my god
Homosexual concentration camp prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution.[7] Reparations and state pensions available to other groups were refused to gay men, who were still classified as criminals — the Nazi anti-gay law was not repealed until 1994, although both East and West Germany liberalized their criminallaws against adult homosexuality in the late 1960s.
“Gay Holocaust” survivors could be re-imprisoned for “repeat offences”, and were kept on the modern lists of “sex offenders”. Under the Allied Military Government of Germany, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment, regardless of the time spent in concentration camps. (X)
Also worth mentioning that homosexuals are still largely unacknowledged as victims of the Holocaust even within circles where they should know better. For example, in the Holocaust Museum in DC and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, gay deaths are acknowledged only in passing and there is not a single picture of a “man of the pink triangle” - only of an empty ballroom that had once held a gay dance club. When Yad Vashem was completely redone in 2005, gay groups pressed for inclusion alongside other non-Jewish groups such as the disabled, Roma, etc., and numerous senior-level officials and the Rabbinate condemned such requests for inclusion, with some going so far as to suggest that the homosexuals were German criminals and therefore did not belong in the same category as the Jews who had done nothing wrong. When the memorial to gays in the Holocaust was unveiled in Berlin four years ago, senior members of Yad Vashem condemned it and, in particular, its proximity to the memorial for Jewish victims of the Shoah.
If someone tells you a racist, sexist or homophobic joke, don’t get mad at them. Just tell them you don’t get it. Keep telling them you don’t get it until they are forced to explain why women/minorities/homosexuals are stupid/etc.
Then just walk away.
Or if they say “oh, never mind then” just go “OH I GET IT IT’S BECAUSE WOMEN/MINORITIES/HOMOSEXUALS ARE STUPID/etc. RIGHT?”
which was brought by White Christian missionaries.
oop.
I was literally just about to send this
For fuck’s sake, that anti-gay oppression is mostly the fault of the British Penal Codeexactly. Most pre-colonial African spiritualities (I NEVER feel right calling them religions) had complex notions of gender, sexuality and omnipotence. Anthropologists fucked it up with Khemet (Egypt). They thought they worshiped multiple gods when in reality they just believed in multiple aspects to one’s idea of permanence. There’s a nice article about it that was going around on tumblr. White Colonialism dismantled that because they believe we were inferior… so our ideologies must be too.
ha i had just sent you a link to this, but we dont even have to go back that far, white evangelicals were directly involved in the creation of the “kill the gays” bill.
methodically, deliberately so.
it’s always super awkward when white folks conveniently forget that they were directly involved in things.
(Source: bijunn)
I think this speaks for itself. Accepting a person doesn’t mean you get to put limits on their freedom. You can’t be an ally and want us to stop talking, or labeling, or demanding to be heard.
Acceptance has no exceptions. Period.
“AS LONG AS YOU DON’T USE A WEIRD LABEL”
I have seen far too many people on tumblr start to whine that eight labels for sexuality is going “too far”, when a lot of those people know over 81 times that when it comes to Pokemon, and I’m pretty sure sexuality labels are more important that virtual monsters.
Sexuality and gender identity labels aren’t “frivolous”. And the vast majority of people that use them aren’t trying to be “special”, they’re merely trying to find a word that validates and explains their orientation - something that most people have and take for granted. I don’t care if you don’t want to use labels for yourself, or that you personally think labels are stupid, they aren’t stupid to everyone. And to a lot of people, using those labels help themselves more than it simply helps people understand their orientation. Having an actual word helps validate to themselves on a subconscious level that their orientation is legitimate. It also helps many people unite, and find others who wish the same in a partnership.
So what, is being open-minded and accepting becoming too mainstream here and now all the hipsters are going to the other extreme?
tl;dr: This person is amazing and I love their graphics so much it hurts.
Yes these posters and the commentary too.
![queerslutpride:
mylifeasafeminista:
Dear Lady Gaga,
The more I learn about you, the worse it gets.
First, you allowed “Born This Way” to be played and performed without the line about supporting people regardless of their sexual and/or gender identities. This was especially ironic considering that this song was supposedly written as a “gay anthem.”
Then, there are all the times you have made transmisogynistic comments. Although I strongly believe that gender policing is unacceptable, I don’t think you have handled these situations appropriately, to say the least. You can’t combat transphobia with transmisogyny.
Now, my dashboard is full of posts about your recent performance in Australia, in which you used a wheelchair as part of your costume. As “Jesse Billauer, the founder of the quadriplegic advocacy group Life Rolls On,” rightfully said: ”I invite [Gaga] to learn more about the 5.6 million Americans who live with paralysis. They, like me, unfortunately, don’t use a wheelchair for shock value.”
Let’s not forget that time you equated feminism with man hating, as if loving men and being a feminist were mutually exclusive.
Because you are such a famous celebrity, your comments and actions are extremely significant. Each time you express transphobic, ableist, and anti-feminist sentiments, you are sending a message to the world. You are reinforcing the dominant ideologies which allow for the marginalization and oppression of the groups you claim to support. It seems that every time you take one step forward, you take two steps backwards.
P.S. You are not, and will never be, the face of the LGBTQ community. Please stop referring to us as “the gays.” I do not find it particularly endearing or complimentary; in fact, I find your comments to be rather trivializing and offensive.
Update: Lady Gaga’s recent performance was in Australia, not New Zealand. I apologize for the error.
This a terrific example of how you address problems you have with another person.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_loihy75wkl1qidghko1_r1_500.png)
Dear Lady Gaga,
The more I learn about you, the worse it gets.
First, you allowed “Born This Way” to be played and performed without the line about supporting people regardless of their sexual and/or gender identities. This was especially ironic considering that this song was supposedly written as a “gay anthem.”
Then, there are all the times you have made transmisogynistic comments. Although I strongly believe that gender policing is unacceptable, I don’t think you have handled these situations appropriately, to say the least. You can’t combat transphobia with transmisogyny.
Now, my dashboard is full of posts about your recent performance in Australia, in which you used a wheelchair as part of your costume. As “Jesse Billauer, the founder of the quadriplegic advocacy group Life Rolls On,” rightfully said: ”I invite [Gaga] to learn more about the 5.6 million Americans who live with paralysis. They, like me, unfortunately, don’t use a wheelchair for shock value.”
Let’s not forget that time you equated feminism with man hating, as if loving men and being a feminist were mutually exclusive.
Because you are such a famous celebrity, your comments and actions are extremely significant. Each time you express transphobic, ableist, and anti-feminist sentiments, you are sending a message to the world. You are reinforcing the dominant ideologies which allow for the marginalization and oppression of the groups you claim to support. It seems that every time you take one step forward, you take two steps backwards.
P.S. You are not, and will never be, the face of the LGBTQ community. Please stop referring to us as “the gays.” I do not find it particularly endearing or complimentary; in fact, I find your comments to be rather trivializing and offensive.
Update: Lady Gaga’s recent performance was in Australia, not New Zealand. I apologize for the error.
This a terrific example of how you address problems you have with another person.
