Welcome to Third Cultured, a newsletter covering all things queer and techno-politics from the perspective of Kyle Borland. My goal is to highlight all the ways today is different (and not so) from yesterday.
Third Cultured is available to all, but please consider becoming a paid subscriber in order to comment on articles and enjoy other community benefits.
This edition:
Essay/Opinion
Links, Quotes & Things
Essay/Opinion
This will be the last newsletter until early January. I’m going to enjoy the holidays by totally unplugging from publishing and working my 9-5.
You may have noticed in the introductory description that the topic of “cannabis” has been going in and out. I’ve been debating for some time now, as I think about Third Cultured’s next evolution if it’s possible to work my cannabis work into a newsletter about queer liberation and world politics. Ultimately, I determined that answer is no.
It will be more effective for me and more interesting for readers if I break the topics up into two separate newsletters: (1) all things queer and techno-politics and (2) cannabis.
I hope you’ll forgive me for deciding another email should pack into your inbox, but the booming world around cannabis and the evolution of drugs as a whole is so all-encompassing that it’s impossible to do any topic justice while they’re all together.
I’ll be working over the holiday break to find Third Cultured and my cannabis publications next iteration, along with enjoying some long overdue family time in Alabama and Georgia. To add to the celebration, my mom is turning 60 and retiring on Sunday, so the next three weeks are looking to be one to remember.
Personally, I celebrated my 29th birthday last Friday, and I am beyond proud of what I was able to accomplish in year 28.
I got a full-time job, secured health insurance again, earned six figures for the first time ever, took a writing class and received rave reviews for my short story, traveled to the Russian River Valley and San Diego for the first time, upgraded our home and my personal office (get yourself a king-sized bed ASAP) – all while surviving a pandemic!
As I keep getting reminded, this is the last year of my twenties. The “dreaded” 30 inching closer day by day, second by second. Truthfully, I’m feeling okay about being a 30-something in a little less than a year. I had my end-of-year review yesterday and my bosses said in quick summation, “Everything is going amazing, and everyone loves you. Please don’t leave us anytime soon.”
To say I felt validated and overjoyed, is an understatement.
You know you’re doing something right when the hardest question in your life is, “What do you want? What is your purpose?”
I am in a very strong position to do whatever the answer to those questions is in the short-to-long term future. I may be closer to answering them than I think, but at the moment, all I can think about is paying off my credit cards (by March) and losing 30 more pounds (by Pride). I was pretty honest with my bosses about that, too. They are providing me the stability I haven’t had for a while, so I’m taking advantage of it to the fullest extent I can.
That being said, I want to have an answer for them by my one-year review at the end of Q1. What do I want to do? What do I enjoy? What impact do I want to have?
So, that’s what I’ll be thinking over while sipping down spiked eggnog and champagne while indulging in queer Christmas movies over the break. I hope you find yourself equally excited and nervous about the future as we all hop on the road and jump into the skies to rejoin our loved ones after another year of COVID life.
Even if not, perhaps especially so, I’m sending you strength and love this holiday.
Remember to share some with yourself.
As always, thanks for reading, and Happy Holidays.
5 LGBTQIA-Friendly Destinations To Hit Up in the New Year (thrillist)
11 Queer Movies Coming Out in 2022 We Can’t Wait to See (Out)
19 Best LGBTQ+ Books Of 2021 And That Definitely Deserve A Place In Your Bookshelf (BuzzFeed)
50+ transgender or gender non-conforming people fatally shot or killed by other violent means in 2021, the most since records began (Human Rights Campaign)
74-year old man threatened to use “firepower” against 2021 NYC Pride that would make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub mass shooting “look like a cakewalk.” (BuzzFeed News)
Canada bans LGBTQ ‘conversion therapy’ as France moves to criminalize it (Washington Post)
Chile same-sex marriage: Law overwhelmingly approved by parliament (BBC)
Church group creates 'a safe place to escape' for LGBTQ asylum-seekers (NBC News)
Congress and top Capitol Hill staff have violated the STOCK Act hundreds of times. But the consequences are minimal, inconsistent, and not recorded publicly. (Insider)
Depression rising among LGBT people in conservative-ruled Poland (Reuters)
FindCenter: Collected Wisdom for the LGBTQIA+ community (Find Center)
For Queer Communities, Being Counted Has Downsides (WIRED)
Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy for LGBTQ Youth Can Help Save Lives, Study Finds (TIME)
Queer man beaten in ‘homophobic’ attack on London tube (Pink News)
Recorded homophobic hate crimes soared in pandemic, figures show (The Guardian)
Reports of sexual orientation hate crimes recorded by UK police forces rose from an average of 1,456 a month from January to April this year to 2,211 on average from May to August.
From January to August this year, at least 14,670 homophobic hate crime offences were recorded, compared with 11,841 in the same period of 2020 and 10,817 in 2019. During the same time period, police recorded 2,129 transphobic offences – well above the 1,606 offences in 2020 and 1,602 in 2019.
Republicans and Democrats should unite to protect LGBTQ Americans (Al Jazeera)
Republicans Who Assailed Biden’s Stimulus Bill Are Embracing the Money (NYTimes)
'RuPaul's Drag Race' Fans Debate First Cishet Queen (Paper)
It’s the paradox of plenty: The more things there are to buy, the more difficult it is to find the right thing among the plethora of ads and competition, new material and secondhand, quality and garbage.
“Amazon knows what I buy, how often I buy, what I search for,” Mr. Kaziukenas said. “But decades after it launched, it can’t answer a simple question — what would Juozas like to buy? Instead it shows me thousands of deals, with some basic filters like category and price, and hopes I will find what I like. Amazon is so much work.”
