Happy Pride, Beautiful People!
#136
Welcome to Third Cultured, a newsletter covering all things queer and techno-politics from the perspective of Kyle Borland (he/they). My goal is to highlight all the ways today is different (and not so) from yesterday.
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This edition:
Opinion Essay
Links, Quotes & Things
Opinion Essay
For the start of Pride season, I want to highlight the light in our community. I am still me so there’s plenty links below detailing our struggles, but for one month of the year, Queers take center stage and shine. Tonight, San Francisco lights the Pink Triangle on Twin Peaks – I haven’t decided if I’m attending or not given Mayor Breed’s toxic choice to prioritize cops over Queer people during Pride – but on Friday, my partner and I are seeing the return of the Cockette’s!
This week is just the beginning. I plan on cramming the entire month with drag shows, balls, and parties full of beautiful Queer people. Last night, my partner revealed the design for D10 Pride’s Pride t-shirt – LGBTQ Nation highlighted us from the parade in 2018, which you can see below! – and our float is almost complete for the parade on Sunday, June 26. Memorial Day weekend to the end of Pride month (truthfully, until after the Fourth of July) is my favorite time of year. It’s a true, annual jubilee for the everyone open and loving enough to celebrate.
A Brief Photo History of Queer Pride and Protest (Advocate)
Americans see more LGBTQ people on TV these days. That's absolutely crucial for our cause. (USA Today)
Barbie has released its first-ever transgender doll, styled after iconic actress Laverne Cox (LGBTQ Nation)
Brave doctor becomes ‘first’ Qatari to publicly come out as gay (Pink News)
Ellen DeGeneres Used Her Final Show to Remind People She Wasn’t Allowed to Say Gay (them)
For these Utah queer creators, making art is ‘a safe space’ (Salt Lake Tribune)
Hundreds of LGBTQ+ art pieces flood Detroit galleries for Pride Month (Axios)
The Revelations of Thom Gunn’s Letters (The New Yorker)
With homophobic hostility on the rise, queer comedy is building resilience by turning things up (CBC)
Why the “Bad Gays” of History Deserve More Attention (LitHub)
Why some people use she/they & he/they pronouns (LGBTQ Nation) #ItMe!
Happy Pride, beautiful people! I hope you celebrate today and all month long.
As always, thanks for reading.
Kyle (@kgborland)
Links, Quotes & Things
Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws/Violence in the US and around the world
Anti-gay mob of 100 people beat American man bloody & parade him through the streets (LGBTQ Nation)
As LGBTQ rights come under attack across the country, S.F. officials worry about police uniforms (SF Chronicle)
A 25-year-old got in a taxi outside an N.Y.C. gay bar. He was dead an hour later. (NBC News)
A Gay Iowa Teacher Resigns After Being Outed and Blackmailed (them)
A Tennessee Christian University Wants to Ban Students from Being Trans (them)
Being Gay Was the Gravest Sin in Washington: Washington’s Hundred-Year War on Gays (The Atlantic, TIME, Washington Weekly)
How LGBTQ teens stepped up & saved their small town’s Pride parade (LGBTQ Nation)
Israeli right-wing magazine decries 'LGBT-stan' 'LGBT religion' (Jerusalem Post)
Students protest against a Seattle university's ban on hiring LGBTQ employees (NPR)
Violent straight man acquitted of murder after he said he felt “violated” finding out his hookup was a man (LGBTQ Nation)
Will a YouTube video about ‘being gay in Indonesia’ lead to a LGBT ban? (SCMP)
AWS for Industry, But Better: The Railroad Investment Case (The Diff)
America in the present, is very fortunate to have been very sloppy and irresponsible in the distant past. The story of why the US has such a marvelous railroad network is one of over-optimism, bad math, market manipulation, and flagrant corruption. Railroads were about two thirds of the market in 1900, and other big chunks like banks, steel, and telegraphs were intimately tied to the railroad industry's fortunes. No industry has ever dominated the market so much, and no industry ever will again. 4
Comment: It'd be hysterical how much of the States' problems can be tied to our binary reactions if it didn't active harm us every step of the way. That said, it does make sense that after a century or so of railroads dominating American life that we LEAPED at the chance to weaken them. In true American fashion, we went too far. Let’s hope that this time around we’re a little better at balancing varying transportation types!
Baptists and Other Christians Being Hypocrites
The Plot to Out Ronald Reagan (Politico)
You Guys Actually Worship Cthulhu (Forever Wars)
“Being a Teacher in America Means Being Willing to Take a Bullet For Your Kids” (The Flashpoint)
Black Gay Candidates Make History With Primary Wins in Texas (The Advocate)
Colorado’s gay governor signs law helping LGBTQ parents overcome a child custody nightmare (LGBTQ Nation)
The law, formally called H.B. 22-1153, helps streamline the adoption process for same-sex parents whose children were conceived by assisted reproduction. It allows LGBTQ parents to declare a “voluntary acknowledgment of parentage,” a statement of parental rights that has the full force of a court order.
The issue at hand affects LGBTQ parents in other states as well. In Oklahoma, a lesbian parent is fighting for custody of her daughter after a judge ordered for the parent’s name to be removed from her child’s birth certificate because she was the “non-gestational” partner. The child’s gestational mother and sperm donor are now fighting the non-gestational partner for legal custody of the child.
Comment: On top of the price/burden of a child and our society’s deteriorating collective social will to take care of them, it’s stories like this one that ensure I will never want children.
I am queer and proud – even though I am now married to a man (The Guardian)
When I married a man, I knew it meant changing how I represented and inhabited sexual identity. Before I met my husband, I had long-term relationships with women, so I am deeply aware of the privileges of being straight-passing. Never again do I have to carefully insert my partner’s pronouns into conversation while gauging the other person’s response. I rarely experience discrimination or fetishisation. Even after seven years, I am still amazed not to be jeered at from cars when we kiss, or have B&B receptionists goggle as we ask for a double bed.
I am finding a middle ground. I take our son to the family days at Pride. We have hung a rainbow flag in our window (much to the curiosity of our neighbours); I advocate for LGBTQI+ rights. I am still learning, but I am trying to give what I can while not taking what is not mine any more. I am queer and proud, but I know my place. Sadly, it is not at that fabulous Eurovision party, but it is not, thankfully, listening to Czech David Gray, either.
I'm Scared (Hola Papi)
So, where does that leave the rest of us?
The reality is, no matter who you are, this life demands bravery. Remember that for many people, things aren’t only recently trending in a terrifying direction. Your comfort has been disturbed, but there are people who have never experienced comfort at all.
I don’t say that to make you feel bad or to minimize your feelings, but to illustrate this point—your comfort, anyone’s comfort, is contingent on the ebb and flow of cultural trends, on how people (that nebulous, unpredictable mass) react to the seismic shifts of society. It’s a fragile thing. What’s given can always be taken away.
Irish Ayes 'Out In The World: Ireland's LGBTQ+ Diaspora' (Bay Area Reporter)
Is contemporary gay literature broken, or are we simply “caught in a mimetic cage of your own making”? (sweater weather)
Kyrsten Sinema shredded by fellow Democrats for blocking gun reform as kids are killed (LGBTQ Nation)
LGBTQ Ukrainians and Russians find solidarity in Berlin (Al Jazeera)
Monkeypox
As monkeypox cases grow, so do fears of a return of gay blame and stigma (LA Times)
CDC identifies nine suspected monkeypox cases in U.S. amid signs of local spread (Washington Post)
Monkeypox and gay men: Separating stigma from health advice (BBC)
The Monkeypox Virus Is Affecting Queer Men, but Has Nothing to Do With Being Queer (them)
Comment: Watch this story. The cis, straight masses love nothing more than a scapegoat for a plague. They’re already doing it if you’re willing to pay attention.
Replacement Theory Is White Supremacy (LA Progressive)
Spanish LGBTQ groups wary of monkeypox stigma as Pride nears (AP)
The Boy and the Internet (The Discourse Lounge)
The Top Gun Volleyball Scene Is Not Homoerotic. It Is Homosexual. (Esquire)
Comment: Watching this scene back just drives home how repressed gay men were in the 80’s.
The Women Who Ran Genghis Khan’s Empire (Atlas Obscura)
Ukraine
An unlikely queer hero dodges bombs to deliver aid in Ukraine (LGBTQ Nation)
Anti-LGBTQ propaganda is a big part of Russia’s war effort (LGBTQ Nation)
Ukraine's 'unicorn' LGBTQ soldiers head for war (Reuters)