QUILTBAG general thread?

YES! Capes and GLITTER! Best April Fool's thread renaming EVER!!!

Wait, are we keeping the new room name? 8D

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Wait, are we keeping the new room name? 8D

Click to expand...

---

Either name works, Rhoda. I don't do glitter, but capes are it.

Found a lovely article via my cousin's FaceBook feed on being a Christian ally: http://momastery.com/blog/2015/04/06/support-your-right/

I recently came across this short story by Roger Delany titled "Aye, and Gomorrah". It's about a group of people called the Spacers whose genitalia is neutered during puberty to allow them to travel through space with ease. Spacers usually face harassement and have a complex relationships with Frilks, people of any kind that fetishize them.

I felt it was a very beautiful short story and, Delany may hold some abhorrent views, but no doubt he was a pioneer on queer science fiction and a visionary. Reading stories like this makes me love the possibilities of speculative fiction and feel ache when it gets stuck on sameness.

During the weekend I stumble upon a bit of history available for anyone online. It's all the editions of Vice Versa, the oldest lesbian periodical known to exist in the US, published circa 1947. It's quite a fascinating insight! And it's interesting to see some debates still remain to this day. Hope you enjoy it.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Found a lovely article via my cousin's FaceBook feed on being a Christian ally: http://momastery.com/blog/2015/04/06/support-your-right/

Click to expand...

I enjoyed this article.

Of course, when I shared it on Facebook because of that reason, a religious debate ensued and I had to go get my popcorn. Good thing I wasn't involved in that one!

Lately, it's been a real struggle never to experience being with a girl in my life. I find it strange, since I find them more attractive than men, but all I can ever get are boyfriends, like right now. ((I like men for different reasons than attractiveness.)) All I ever do is stare at cute girls and sigh longingly, wishing. 'Tis pathetic.

Also, whenever I express my belief of being bisexual-or any orientation-is not a bad thing, I always get into disagreements with people like some friends or my boyfriend. *shakes fist*

Miss Strawberrii said:

I enjoyed this article.

Of course, when I shared it on Facebook because of that reason, a religious debate ensued and I had to go get my popcorn. Good thing I wasn't involved in that one!

Click to expand...

I like the religious debates. It's fun to see the reasons some people don't believe others have certain rights.

Lately, it's been a real struggle never to experience being with a girl in my life. I find it strange, since I find them more attractive than men, but all I can ever get are boyfriends, like right now. ((I like men for different reasons than attractiveness.)) All I ever do is stare at cute girls and sigh longingly, wishing. 'Tis pathetic.

Also, whenever I express my belief of being bisexual-or any orientation-is not a bad thing, I always get into disagreements with people like some friends or my boyfriend. *shakes fist*

Click to expand...

You're not to only one stares longingly. Right now I stare at guys and gals. I have yet to find someone I can talk to about being bisexual without getting into some kind of debate. I don't know why I keep trying.

You can talk to me, since I wouldn't debate with you. Haha. XD

I'm really tired of guys hitting on me and saying naughty things with me. Honestly, why can't I meet female friends instead? Or why can't THEY be female? I could live with that.

*sighs*

Ok! Hey Strawberrii how's your week going?

You want the men to be female? Honestly that would just be too many women then! But yeah, the constant naughty talk gets to me. I actually like to get to know people before we get to that point.

My peeve right now is the way the room gets quiet when I say a gal is cute. When it's a guy it's fine, but talking about girls you can hear crickets. And no matter how many times I 'accidentally' say something like that, the same people kind of freak out.

I only say a gal is cute around certain people. Only around my bf and one friend. His parents don't know and there's no one else around here.

It's kind of funny to me when me and and that one friend mention a girl is cute. XD

polybisang said:

My peeve right now is the way the room gets quiet when I say a gal is cute. When it's a guy it's fine, but talking about girls you can hear crickets. And no matter how many times I 'accidentally' say something like that, the same people kind of freak out.

Click to expand...

Oh, I hate that too. I limit my talk about gals. I know I shouldn't have to, but I get insecure.

I started only saying it around certain people but recently I've been trying to 'find myself'. That sounded so cliche but that's basically what it is.

I've been told that I have a different personality depending on who I'm with (I'm a Gemini) and I adapt to that person (only if I'm comfortable with who they are). I'm tired of conforming to what everyone else (basically society) wants.

I accidentally let my preferences slip in front of my brother one day and he was uncomfortable (more because I'm his sister and he doesn't want to hear about my romance life) but non-judging because he had his own struggle with 'finding' his sexuality or lack thereof. But since there's only him and my 3 sisters that I can truthfully say it would hurt for them not to accept it, I've been trying not to care so much. I've yet to tell my sisters, but they accept all my craziness (it quite a lot) and I don't see them hating me over this. Of course, time will tell.

Wow that was an essay

Lately, I've been feeling...antsy, I guess, to meet people. I don't have a ton of relationship experience, and while I've never been very concerned with having a partner, I don't want to wait forever, you know?

But meeting people is so hard, especially since I would prefer to meet women. I've looked at almost every queer-identified woman on OKcupid who's at least an 80% match for me, have messaged some of them, and there just doesn't seem to be many new people showing up. I've lost contact with most of the people I knew from school and I'm not really active in the local LGBT community. I'm not really into clubbing, and there aren't a lot of LGBT social groups in my area that both pertain to my interests and skew toward my age range.

It's just frustrating, I suppose.

DancingMaenid said:

Lately, I've been feeling...antsy, I guess, to meet people. I don't have a ton of relationship experience, and while I've never been very concerned with having a partner, I don't want to wait forever, you know?

But meeting people is so hard, especially since I would prefer to meet women. I've looked at almost every queer-identified woman on OKcupid who's at least an 80% match for me, have messaged some of them, and there just doesn't seem to be many new people showing up. I've lost contact with most of the people I knew from school and I'm not really active in the local LGBT community. I'm not really into clubbing, and there aren't a lot of LGBT social groups in my area that both pertain to my interests and skew toward my age range.

It's just frustrating, I suppose.

Click to expand...

Aw, that sucks. I hope you find someone one day.

That situation sounds tough. Maybe join an activity / hobby group or something? Maybe you need to find the local LGBT areas or join an LGBT online community? It's really tricky to find someone, isn't it? (I would have some similar problems too, but I'm not looking for a relationship right now.)

But yeah, that would suck. I still say try out some more LGBT scenes, whether or online or offline. Maybe meet some new people at work or college, etc?

I hope you meet your someone. For me, it happened when I stopped hoping. I mean, I did a few things to actively (and hopefully) meet people. But I found that the ones I was meeting were too actively looking...they seemed to be interested in one thing. There's was more about going through the list and checking everyone off. I am SO not into that.

I was sitting in a Starbucks writing when my world changed.

I'm not saying stop looking...I'm just saying when it's supposed to happen it will. That probably sounds SO unhelpful. Sorry. I hope the two of you meet soon...you just have to run into each other. (-:

(Am I allowed to rez this thread? I'm rezzing this thread.)

I've been feeling really insecure about my sexuality recently. I made a gay friend recently, and we chatted about LGBT issues. I mentioned in passing that I was bisexual. And now all I can think is that he probably doesn't believe me, he probably thinks I'm pretending or it's just a phase. Even if he doesn't, what about everyone else I've come out to? I'm sure at least some of them secretly think I'm full of shit.

His boyfriend seems pretty accepting of it and treats me normally (doesn't dismiss my orientation, act uncomfortable, or "forget" and call me straight). Which is nice.

When I was in high school, I was friends with a bunch of lesbian and bisexual gals. I kind of miss them. I miss feeling normal and not caring about it.

[/emotional nonsense]

(Yes, you're allowed to resurrect this thread.)

And UGH re: bisexual erasure and biphobia. It unfortunately seems to be more common in the GL part of the community than I originally thought. Not that gay men and lesbians can't be horrible to others within their own sub-category either due to internalized homophobia, racism, etc.

A friend who was bisexual told me some sad stories about the way some lesbian women treat bisexual women, at least. She told me what a "gold star" lesbian was. I had to pick my jaw up out of my lap. I know it's none of my business, but it still made me sad and angry.

So sorry to hear that, Viridian.

I suspect some of my friends do not take seriously that I told them I was bi since I have never been in a relationship or appear to be actively trying to engage in one.

bunny-gypsy said:

Aw, that sucks. I hope you find someone one day.

That situation sounds tough. Maybe join an activity / hobby group or something? Maybe you need to find the local LGBT areas or join an LGBT online community? It's really tricky to find someone, isn't it? (I would have some similar problems too, but I'm not looking for a relationship right now.)

But yeah, that would suck. I still say try out some more LGBT scenes, whether or online or offline. Maybe meet some new people at work or college, etc?

Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm looking for opportunities. It feels like a lot of the LGBT social stuff in my city revolves around bars and drag shows, and I'm not much of a bar person. Our gay community center is sadly lacking in social groups.

But maybe I can find something. I am thinking about giving a local queer kink group a try, and I've been looking at a group on meetup.com. I'm sure there are chanced to put myself out there. I'm thinking of volunteering, but I just started a new job and don't know if I want to take on too big of a time commitment just yet.

KTC said:

I hope you meet your someone. For me, it happened when I stopped hoping. I mean, I did a few things to actively (and hopefully) meet people. But I found that the ones I was meeting were too actively looking...they seemed to be interested in one thing. There's was more about going through the list and checking everyone off. I am SO not into that.

I was sitting in a Starbucks writing when my world changed.

I'm not saying stop looking...I'm just saying when it's supposed to happen it will. That probably sounds SO unhelpful. Sorry. I hope the two of you meet soon...you just have to run into each other. (-:

Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouragement. It's always nice to hear about LGBT people meeting their partners this way, because it's easy to feel like that Avenue is closed off to me.

Roxxsmom said:

A friend who was bisexual told me some sad stories about the way some lesbian women treat bisexual women, at least. She told me what a "gold star" lesbian was. I had to pick my jaw up out of my lap. I know it's none of my business, but it still made me sad and angry.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I think the idea of gold star lesbians is pretty unhelpful. Even a lot of gay and lesbian people have straight relationships before coming out, and the pressure isn't helpful.

Thanks for the support, guys.

I've always seen the whole "gold star lesbian" thing as kind of a joke. I hope people don't actually take it to heart. I've heard people argue that if you've had sex with a man, you're not really a lesbian, and I've heard people argue that if you haven't had sex with a man, you can't know for sure you're a lesbian. The whole thing seems kind of stupid.

Had a good talk with my mother today. When I first came out to her, she tried to convince me I was straight. She's a really liberal person, very pro-LGBT, so that reaction totally caught me off-guard. That was a few years ago. We've never really talked about it.

I brought it up with her today and asked her if she still felt the same... and she apologized, said she regretted her reaction, and explained her personal bias clouded her judgment. Feels good to finally have that behind us. I didn't realize how much it had been weighing me down.

I think the gold star thing is generally a joke, and I'm not super bothered by it. And I think I get where it comes from. At the same time, I think it plays into (or off) the idea that people who have their sexuality figured out at a young age are "extra" gay.

With regards to biphobia, I've certainly worried about people taking me less seriously. There are a lot of biases that are hard to overcome.