Sunday Links, Quotes & Things

#TC109

Welcome to Third Cultured – a foreign policy and LGBTQIA+ politics newsletter – published by yours truly, Kyle Borland. My goal is to highlight the unique role Queer people play in the politics of the United States and the world-at-large.

Third Cultured is available to all but, as Austin Kleon says, "This newsletter is free, but not cheap.” If you’re able, support my writing by becoming a paid subscriber!

This edition:

• Links

• Quotes & Things

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Links

Stay safe and get vaccinated, beautiful people. (It’s FDA approved!)

Thanks for reading.

Roll Tide,

Kyle (@kgborland)

PS – Here are some stories worth your time.

• 1 in 10 LGBT workers experienced discrimination at work (LA Blade)

• 1 percent are evading $163 billion a year in taxes, the Treasury finds. (NYTimes)

• 20 GOP-led states challenge Biden administration on transgender rights (NBC News)

• A Father-Daughter Trip on a Cruise for Gay Men (New Yorker)

• Accidental Church: The Minneapolis Skyway (Hola Papi)

• Adult Swim: How an Animation Experiment Conquered Late-Night TV (NYTimes)

• Afghanistan Appeal: LGBTQIA+ Emergency Fund (GiveOut)

  GiveOut @GiveOut_Org

  Wondering how to support #LGBTQ+ Afghans at risk? We have launched an emergency appeal in support of @RainbowRailroad's urgent work on #Afghanistan. Click here to learn more & donate 👇giveout.org/afghanistan-ap…

  

  giveout.orgAfghanistan Appeal — GiveOutGiveOut has activated our LGBTQ+ Emergency Fund in response to the unfolding crisis in Afghanistan. We are asking you to donate to this appeal to support Rainbow Railroad in their urgent work to help LGBTQ+ Afghans at risk.

• Amplifying Voices Of South Asian LGBT Millennial Community (Logical Indian)

  

  (Source: ILGA World)

• Alphonso David, Who Advised Cuomo, Fired as Human Rights Campaign President (them.)

• Atlanta awarded $25,000 to preserve LGBT history (The Signal)

• Bigots got an LGBTQ history display booted from the Missouri capitol (LGBTQ Nation)

• California Senate passes first-in-the-nation bill aimed at better understanding LGBTQ victims of violent crimes (Gay Times)

• Cases of missing trans people are rarely solved. A married pair of forensic genealogists is hoping to change that (Xtra)

• Chinese university appears to ask for lists of LGBTQ+ students for ‘investigation’ (The Guardian)

• COVID Death Toll Re-Climbs to 1,500/Day as Delta Ravages the US (The Post)

  What is different about this fourth pandemic wave in the United States is that the growing rates of vaccination and natural immunity have broken the relationship between infections and deaths in many areas.

  The daily count of new infections is rising in almost every part of the country. But only some places — mostly Southern states with lower vaccination rates — are seeing a parallel surge in deaths. 

  Comment: Of course this story opens in Alabama…I’m so disappointed in Americans.

  Adam Sternbergh @sternbergh

  can't stop staring in disbelief at this map of current global covid hot spots — the U.S., the wealthiest country in the world, where vaccines are freely available, has the highest per capita case rate right now of any country except Mongolia

  

• Dozens of LGBTQ Afghans seek assistance from Immigration Equality (Washington Blade)

• Empires and ‘Effeminate Men.’ After Britain and America, It’s China’s Turn to Worry about Masculinity (TIME)

• EU warns Polish regions they could lose funding over 'LGBT-free' zones (Reuters)

• Gay Black men rarely saw themselves on screen. Michael K. Williams changed that. (NBC News)

• Gay Games in Hong Kong face attacks as China targets LGBT groups (The Post)

• Guardian Pulls Judith Butler's Comments On "Gender-Critical" Anti-Trans Movement (The Flashpoint)

• Half Baked: How A Would-Be Cannabis Empire Went Up In Smoke (Indy Monthly)

• HIV Vaccines Progress:

  Shot: Johnson & Johnson HIV vaccine trial fails mid-stage study (ABC News)

  Chaser: Moderna set to start human trials of experimental mRNA HIV vaccine (Clinical Trials Arena)

• Imaginary Kingdoms: On the Power of Literature That Speaks to Children and Adults Alike (LitHub)

• Indian LGBTQ+ community mourns one of its forefathers: the visionary and courageous Saleem Kidwai [1951-2021] (Indian Express)

• Lil Nas X raises money for LGBTQ nonprofits with a 'baby registry' (NBC News)

• Mexico decriminalizes abortion, a dramatic step in world’s second-biggest Catholic country (Washington Post)

• Michael K. Williams made queer Black masculinity iconic (CNN)

• Nintendo’s "queer-coded" villain divides gamers' opinions (Axios)

• No Access: LGBTQIA+ Website Censorship in Six Countries (OutRight)

  

  “Blocking of different types of LGBTIQ websites based on analysis of OONI measurements.” (Source: OutRight)

• Only way to ensure sex workers have a safe place to work online is to pressure MasterCard and other banks and payment processors to stop cowtowing to evangelical groups (Sex and the State)

• Open Letter to WORLD PRIDE Organizers and The Global LGBTQ+ Equality Movement (Edafe Okporo)

• Out in the World: Advocates work to evacuate nearly 1,000 LGBTQ Afghans (Bay Area Reporter)

• Over 900,000 Dead, a ‘Vast Undercount,’ and $8 Trillion Looted (Forever Wars)

  The Costs of War Project exhumes a study I hadn’t seen: a Pentagon tally, required by Congress, of the cost of the wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan to each U.S. taxpayer. It doesn’t seem to be broken down by actual tax burden, which would highlight how unequally the costs of war are truly borne. Nevertheless, the Pentagon estimated in March that these wars – which are hardly all the operations in the War on Terror franchise – cost you, the American reading this, $8,094 and counting. 

• Poland’s chief rabbi speaks out against LGBT-free zones: ‘It is against Jewish law’. (Pink News)

• Prejudice And Pride: Georgia's LGBT Community Finds New Strength After Violent Attacks (Radio Free Europe)

• 'Q-Force' Trafficks In Queer Stereotypes — Then Drives Through Them (NPR)

• Reject the Myths of Empire (Eunomia)

  

  (Source: GZERO)

• The Mid-Century Male Bulge Is Ready for You (Out)

• The Other Afghan Women (The New Yorker)

• The Search for America’s Atlantis (The Atlantic)

• Twitch Users Are Boycotting Over Attacks Targeting Black, Queer And Disabled People (NPR)

• US diplomat: US prepared to try to quickly conclude Iran deal talks and 'turn the page' (Diplomatic)

• What “Jennifer’s Body” Foretold (New Yorker)

• What the end of Roe v. Wade means for LGBTQ people (LA Blade)

• When the toughest trees met the hottest fire (E&E News)

• Where Did All the Black People in Oakland Go? (Darrell’s Newsletter)

• Where L.G.B.T.Q. Migrants Find the True Meaning of Shelter (NYTimes)

• Who Lost the Sex Wars? (The New Yorker)

• Why the Global Chip Shortage is Making it so Hard to Buy a PS5 (The Verge)

• Xi Jinping’s crackdown on everything is remaking Chinese society (WaPo)

  Male Chinese celebrities known for their androgynous style have also become a threat in Beijing’s eyes. Last week, regulators ordered broadcasters to encourage “masculinity” and put a stop to “abnormal beauty standards” such as “niangpao,” a slur that translates to “sissy men.”

  “The party does not feel comfortable with expressions of individualism that are in some ways transgressive to norms that it puts forward,” said Rana Mitter, a professor of modern Chinese history and politics at the University of Oxford. “The party-state makes it clear that it has the first and last word on what is permitted in mass culture.”

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Quotes & Things

JP @jpbrammer

at this point I don’t care if the confidence is unearned I don’t wanna die feeling like shit 😂😂😂

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

– Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet

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