required reading

Jun. 18th, 2008 at 11:00 AM

found a link in

transgender to An Open Letter to Today's Happy Newlyweds.

if you know anyone who is lgb but doesn't know that the Stonewall riots were led by drag queens and other transgendered people, send them this link. please.

Comments

( 13 comments — Leave a comment )

stoneself

Jun. 18th, 2008 06:57 pm (UTC)

"we're just like you"

sorry drag queens and transsexuals are too freaky.

need those "just like you middle class" images to win people over.

right?

*goes around beating people over the head with the trouble with normal*

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eriktrips

Jun. 18th, 2008 07:13 pm (UTC)

Re: "we're just like you"

that's right. we can't go making people uncomfortable with their own assumptions. that'd be too pushy!

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mckennl

Jun. 18th, 2008 08:33 pm (UTC)

ARE there lgb people who don't know this? God, I guess so. My cousin is a lesbian with a partner and everything but until TDO and I took her to Dupont Circle in DC, she'd never seen a gay couple walking down the street holding hands. She'd never been in a gay bookstore. These crazy kids today....

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stoneself

Jun. 18th, 2008 08:52 pm (UTC)

click at your own peril

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0sNTz18jMg

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stoneself

Jun. 18th, 2008 09:03 pm (UTC)

and

Images from gay weddings, said Lorri L. Jean, chief executive of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, could be used by opponents in a campaign designed to persuade California voters that gays and lesbians should not have the right to marry. Those getting married, she cautioned, should never lose sight of what they might be supplying to the other side.

Sitting close to his husband-to-be in the audience, hairstylist Kendall Hamilton nodded and said he knew just what she meant. No "guys showing up in gowns," he said.

"It's a weird subject," added Hamilton, 39, who plans to wed his partner of five years, Ray Paolantonio. "We want everybody to be free, but the image does matter. . . . They are going to try to make us look like freaks."

from Gay couples are emphasizing low-key weddings

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mckennl

Jun. 18th, 2008 09:11 pm (UTC)

Re: and

::eyeroll:: Yeah. Yeah. I mean my answer to those people is, yeah, unlike all those wonderful images of straight marriages in Las Vegas or on Bridezilla shows. Man, I hate that.

But they're not going to be convinced by the facts of Stonewall. They probably think Stonewall itself set us back.

I do tell people the Stonewall story anyhow. And drag my queer relatives to see their people for the first time.

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mckennl

Jun. 18th, 2008 09:13 pm (UTC)

Re: and

I have always said we won't be free until we are allowed to have shitty meaningless weddings in Las Vegas and subsequent quickie divorces, JUST LIKE STRAIGHT PEOPLE. But I'm not in the "must be better than the straights to be considered as good as them" crowd, obviously.

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eriktrips

Jun. 18th, 2008 11:38 pm (UTC)

Re: click at your own peril

I made it through the first 30 seconds. I don't have the blood pressure medication necessary to sit through the whole thing.

yeah those darned pride parades really put the brakes on gay rights in the US! we could have had gay marriage in 1965 without those things!

::bangs head against wall repeatedly::

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touch_of_gray

Jun. 18th, 2008 10:31 pm (UTC)

it is amazing just how often people love to "gloss over" history, isn't it? I know a lot of queer folk who don't know--and refuse to believe--that Stonewall went down that way.

Will be passing it on...

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eriktrips

Jun. 18th, 2008 11:46 pm (UTC)

I hope it opens some eyes. I think one of the biggest problems is that gay history simply is not taught. how do young queers learn about the gay rights movement? "Queer as Folk"? shit. I remember when you had to study to be a lesbian: The Coming Out Stories, The Well of Loneliness, Rubyfruit Jungle.. AND you had to sit through all that horrible music!

these days you can get your queer diploma by watching TV. that's what's set the gay rights movement back by decades.

::grouses about kids these days::

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mckennl

Jun. 19th, 2008 12:25 am (UTC)

HAHAHAHA yeah in MY DAY you had to listen to all that awful music. God. GET OFF MY LAWN.

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touch_of_gray

Jun. 19th, 2008 12:25 pm (UTC)

We can still read! That's where I learned queer history...

*muses* Have to confess, Queer as Folk and the L Word annoy the crap out of me...

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mckennl

Jun. 19th, 2008 12:26 am (UTC)

No, Stonewall was well-dressed lawyers in Armani suits and lipstick lesbians, right?

::gnashing teeth::