Why does researching bisexuality matter?

Throwing all non-heterosexual people into one bucket means not all the letters of the rainbow alphabet have been able to shine.

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The number of people who identify as queer in the UK Census has increased over the past few years. This trend is in particular driven by the rising number of LGBT+ identities among people aged 16 to 24 years. The most popular sexual identity within this emerging group is bisexual – the romantic and/or sexual attraction to more than one gender. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows an increase from 0.7 per cent in 2015 to 1.1 per cent in 2019. Rather than a sudden new surge of bisexual desires, increased acceptance, legal protection and visibility are likely to be the cause of this increase.

But why should we count how many people are bi, or study what their experiences are? Research is young in this field, but we’re already seeing that tossing all queer identities into one research bucket renders the unique struggles of being bisexual invisible. For a start, it’s hard to even get an accurate sense of the exact number of British people who are bisexual. Many people who are attracted to people beyond one gender, shy away from the identity label ‘bisexual’. When it comes to research, this reluctance has led scientists to come up with alternative ways to capture and categorise sexuality.

One of the most common tools used is The Kinsey Scale. First published in 1948 by biologist Dr Alfred Kinsey, it is used to place people on a spectrum of sexual attraction between entirely heterosexual and entirely homosexual, using a scale from 0 to 6. It also includes ‘X’ for those who are asexual. It was so successful that it is still the single most popular scale for classifying sexuality. It’s often what people are indirectly referring to when they say, “Aren’t we all a bit bi?”

When YouGov surveys conducted in 2019 used questions that mimicked The Kinsey Scale, researchers found at least a third of people aged 18 to 24 say that they are attracted to multiple genders. A startling figure compared to the 1 per cent reporting to the ONS. Only with research can we cut through the reluctance people have to say “I am bisexual”, and find out whether those attracted to multiple genders need more support than those who aren’t.

Since social scientists and other researchers have started to analyse the B, we have begun to understand the struggles that uniquely endanger bi people. Research shows us that bi women are hypersexualised, and stereotypes that see bi women as promiscuous sexual playthings feed into people’s existing rape myths.

Accordingly, studies have found that bisexual women are significantly more likely to be raped, repeatedly sexually assaulted, and to be the victims of intimate partner abuse than lesbian and heterosexual women. Had this research homogenised all women into one group, we might never have known that the stereotypes affecting bi women specifically place them at far greater risk of sexual victimisation.

Man holding bisexual flag

A different cluster of toxic assumptions awaits bi men. Bisexual men are seen as lying, to themselves and others, because they are thought to be gay. And, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, bi men were also seen as murderers in disguise, catching AIDS when having sex with men and giving it their female partners. This left many bisexual men isolated and alone, failed by educational campaigns that rarely moved beyond gay spaces.

We need to acknowledge the unique needs of bi people, including a specific focus on bi men. If we don’t, we fail a huge amount of the population. Armed with bi-specific research, we stand a better chance of winning the fight back against the societal biases and misconceptions that hold bisexual people down.

As a young researcher, I didn’t know anyone else who was bisexual in my field, or, for that matter, in any field. It was rarely mentioned, not even in lectures specifically on sex and sexuality. When I graduated with my PhD in 2012, I had no idea how useful my background in criminal psychology would come to be when I turned my gaze to studying bisexuality. For my new book, Bi: The Hidden Culture, History And Science Of Bisexuality, I have found and spoken to researchers across the globe and in various disciplines who are all fighting for change.

I want the world to be a safer place for people like me. The best way that we can achieve that is to visibly support bi people. Let’s not allow the ‘B’ slip into the shadows of its colourful siblings.

Complete Article HERE!

What is heteroflexibility?

And is it just another word for “bisexual?”

Heteroflexible describes someone who is primarily straight, but feels queer attraction.

By Anna Iovine

If you identify as straight but are open to queer experiences, you’re not alone. You may be called “heteroflexible,” a portmanteau that signals being “mostly straight” with a flexibility towards same-sex attraction.

What does heteroflexibility mean?

There’s not an objective definition of heteroflexibility. In fact, it hasn’t yet been used in the scientific study of the psychology of sexual orientation, said Pavel S. Blagov, Ph.D, associate professor of psychology at Whitman College.

One of the earliest cited writings on the term, by then-professor of sociology at Yale University Laurie Essig, was published by Salon in 2000. Essig, now a professor at Middlebury College, defined heteroflexibility as when someone “has or intends to have a primarily heterosexual lifestyle, with a primary sexual and emotional attachment to someone of the opposite sex.” But, as Essig continued, “that person remains open to sexual encounters and even relationships with persons of the same sex.”

As much as 15 percent of the American population may identify as heteroflexible, according to a 2019 study.

What’s the origin of the term “heteroflexibility”?

The exact genesis of the term “heteroflexible” is unknown, but it’s been used as early as the 1990s. In the 1997 humor glossary of LGBTQ slang When Drag is Not a Car Race, heteroflexibility is defined as “bisexual, or at least open to sexual experimentation.”

Heteroflexible appeared to pick up steam on college campuses in the early 2000s, as displayed in Essig’s Salon article. A 2002 dispatch from The Buffalo News declared heteroflexbile the “hot term being bandied about on campus,” and defined it as “the condition of being not fully bisexual but open to adventure.”

How is heteroflexibility used today?

Today, people seem to use the term differently, said Blagov, and its use is being studied by scholars in gender studies, sociology, and public health.

“The concept seems to have different meanings across individuals and in different corners of popular culture,” he continued. There are several facets of sexual orientation that one may use heteroflexbility to refer to: someone’s identity, their sexual desires, their sexual behavior, or something else — or a combination of these.

Based on various sources online, Blagov senses that someone who describes themselves as heteroflexible may be trying to convey one or more of these concepts: “Some degree of attraction to the same sex; some degree of interest in same-sex sexual behavior; a positive attitude toward diversity in sexual orientation; an open mind about different identities; that they owe some allegiance to a heterosexual or straight identity; and that they do not identify as bisexual or homosexual.”

He also cited sociologist Héctor Carrillo and contributor Amanda Hoffman, who researched sexualities of American men in an aptly titled study, Straight with a pinch of bi. One one hand, Carrillo and Hoffman wrote, terms like heteroflexibility and “bi-curious” represent a renewed sense of sexual identity among young straight Americans with same-sex desire — and possibly a search for public recognition and societal acceptance.

At the same time, Carrillo argued, by not adopting a queer identity like bisexual, heteroflexibile people seek to remain in the “heterosexual category.” They want an indication that same-sex desire and behavior “are not altogether incompatible with heterosexuality.”

Blagov reiterated that heteroflexibility isn’t currently an established concept in the scientific study of psychology. “It is not referring to how a person’s mind works or any objectively defined way in which people differ,” he said. At least currently, it doesn’t indicate a proven difference among people. Rather, it’s a label people have started using to describe themselves and others.

The use of heteroflexible also likely differs across individuals and groups, and — like our definition of so many other words — may change over time.

Is heteroflexibility just bisexuality?

Heteroflexibility, Essig wrote, “is a rejection of bisexuality since the inevitable question that comes up in bisexuality is one of preference, and the preference of the heteroflexible is quite clear.”

At first, Essig said she was pissed at the term. “I resented the fact that they [young people] would root their marginal sexual practices in the safety of heterosexuality,” she said. Then, after reflecting, she embraced it because in her view, it could bring an end to heterosexuality’s dominance. In the future, Essig mused, everyone would be flexible.

Other scholars, however, don’t have such a rosy view of the term. In a 2009 article about queer representation in the media, media and communications professor Lisa Blackman wrote that “heteroflexible” serves to expand the boundaries of the “heterosexual” label rather than to normalize queer identities. Flexibility is merely a “temporary interruption” of heterosexual desire, a “break from the routine.”

Blackman goes on to say that the idea of flexibility serves to support the agency of heterosexual people, but not queer people. Queer attraction, at least in media at the time of Blackman’s writing, was seen as something novel for straight people (primarily women) to experience. She cites two examples — Samantha Jones in Sex and the City and Jessica in Kissing Jessica Stein — as characters who flirted with homosexuality, but only temporarily.

Does “heteroflexibility” describe queer desire in terms of…straightness? In Blackman’s sense, yes, said Andrew Cheng, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Linguistics at Simon Fraser University.

While this argument is an academic look into film and television at the time, other queer people have decried the term for similar reasons. Writer Charlie Williams said in Affinity Magazine that the word heteroflexible erases bi identities, saying both heteroflexible and the opposite, homoflexible, are just “fancy words” for bisexual. Another writer, Kravitz M., called for people who feel attraction to multiple genders to question why they don’t call themselves bi, and claimed it might be because of internalized biphobia.

It’s important to remember, though, that the meanings and uses of identity labels change quickly — especially in the internet age — and that identities are dependent on local communities, said Cheng.

“The rise in heteroflexibility as an identification among, say, rural men in the Midwest today, might be very different from how it was used by city-dwelling college students in the nineties,” he continued.

Further, without much psychological research it’s hard to speculate out why someone may identify as heteroflexible (or bi-curious or “mostly straight”) instead of a queer identity, said Blagov.

All this to say, there’s no “correct” use of heteroflexible. It may not be its own sexual orientation — it’s been long known that sexual attraction can fall somewhere between hetero and homosexual — but anyone is free to identify as such. Sexuality, like language itself, can be flexible.

Complete Article HERE!

Am I Gay?

– Resources and Support if You’re Discovering Your Sexual Orientation

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Questions about your sexual identity can be complicated. There are tons of words to describe different sexual orientations: lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, queer, pansexual, and so many more. You may be wondering which one fits you best, if any. It’s important to keep in mind that labels can be helpful in understanding your sexual identity, but if you feel like there isn’t a particular label that suits you, that’s okay and doesn’t mean your identity is any less valid.

For some people, the question of “am I gay” is easy to answer. Some people can point to a moment when they knew they were gay, and others feel like they’ve always just known. For others, their journey of discovering their sexuality can be a little less linear. There’s no wrong way to go about it.

But by definition, to identify as gay would mean that you feel sexual and/or romantic attraction to someone of your same gender identity, says LGBTQ+ expert Kryss Shane. “Sometimes it’s a general awareness, other times it’s self-recognition from a same-sex friendship that begins to feel like something more, and sometimes it’s through sexual exploration,” Shane explains.

If you think that you might be gay, here are some resources and things to keep in mind as you explore your sexuality.

You don’t have to have it all figured out.

Like we said, there are a lot of terms people use to describe their sexual identity and/or gender orientation. Some of them might even feel like they fit for a while, but you could later decide that they don’t really describe who you are. Learning about yourself and your sexuality is a journey, and it’s actually a really beautiful thing.

Your safety is important.

If you don’t feel it’s safe for you to be out in certain contexts—whether with family, at work, at school, or anywhere else—you should trust that instinct. It doesn’t mean you’re denying who you are, it means you’re making the best and safest decision for you.

You don’t have to justify or explain your identity to anyone you don’t want to.

If you want to share your journey with people in your life, go for it! But if you’re not ready to come out yet or share this part of yourself with people, that’s okay, too. You can share as much or as little as you want when it comes to your sexual orientation.

You aren’t alone.

Although your journey with your sexual orientation is unique, you don’t have to do it alone. If it feels safe, you can include your loved ones as you figure it all out, but if that’s not an option for you, you’re still not alone. There are tons of supportive LGBTQ+ people who can support you on your journey.

Some organizations you might want to look into if you’re trying to find your LGBTQ+ community are:

  • PFLAG. There are over 400 chapters across 50 states, so you can connect with LGBTQ+ people in your area who have been where you are.
    • Q Chat Space. If you’re between the ages of 13 and 19 and questioning your sexuality, you can join live online chats for LGBTQ+ and questioning teens facilitated by experienced staff who work at LGBTQ+ centers around the country.
    • TrevorSpace. This is an online community for LGBTQ+ young people ages 13 to 24, where you can join discussion groups and get advice from other people.
    • Your local LGBTQ+ community center. If you live in an area with a dedicated LGBTQ+ community center, they likely have support groups for people who are LGBTQ+ or questioning their sexual identity. They may also have groups for LGBTQ+ people of specific races, ethnicities, ages, or other intersecting identities.
    • Your local community center. Even if you don’t have an LGBTQ+ community center, your local community center may have an LGBTQ+ support group or LGBTQ+ social events that you can check out.

    Find support and comfort through queer representation.

    Reading books about LGBTQ+ people or watching LGBTQ+ movies can help you make sense of your own identity. There are tons of movies and TV shows with gay, queer, and lesbian representation that you can stream. Or you can start getting into the many LGBTQ+ podcasts out there, from ones that teach you about queer history to ones that address issues that LGBTQ+ people face today.

    You can always reach out for help if you need it.

    In addition to the above organizations that provide support groups and other forums for connecting with LGBTQ+ people, there are plenty of other resources you can turn to as you figure things out.

    • The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project has tons of resources to help you learn about different sexual orientations, mental health, gender identity, and more. They also offer LGBTQ+ informed crisis counselors you can talk to via chat, phone, or text.
    • The LGBT National Help Center. This organization operates three national hotlines to provide peer support, information, and other resources to LGBTQ people. They also offer support via online chat and weekly moderated chats for LGBTQ youth.
    • The It Gets Better Project. It Gets Better helps highlight stories and connect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth around the world. They also have a resource page where you can find information and support about everything from crisis resources to legal assistance to housing insecurity, with a focus on LGBTQ+ people.

    Complete Article HERE!

  • A short history of the word ‘bisexuality’

    By Martha Robinson Rhodes

    People have been attracted to more than one gender throughout recorded history. But specific identity labels like bi and pan are relatively new. How did bi+ people in the past understand their identities and attractions, and how does this history affect bi people and communities in the UK today?
    Our Research Officer Martha Robinson Rhodes, who has a PhD in bi history, explains…

    In 1859, anatomist Robert Bentley Todd first used the term ‘bisexuality’ to refer to the possession of ‘male’ and ‘female’ physical characteristics in the same body – today, we might understand this as being intersex. This meaning was taken up by nineteenth-century sexologists – scientists and psychologists studying sex and sexuality, including Henry Havelock Ellis and Richard von Krafft-Ebing – who explored evolution and speculated about “the latent organic bi-sexuality in each sex”, noting that “at an early stage of development, the sexes are indistinguishable”.

    By the beginning of the twentieth century, this meaning had shifted to focus on a combination of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ gendered characteristics – what today we would describe as androgyny. The modern meaning of bisexuality, which describes sexual and/or romantic attraction rather than sexed or gendered characteristics, only developed in the 1910s. However, for many years the different meanings of bisexuality were used at the same time and sometimes in the same texts. Sigmund Freud made his famous claim about ‘universal’ bisexuality in 1915, but referred to this both as a combination of masculinity and femininity and as a sexual or romantic attraction, writing, “the sexual object is a kind of reflection of the subject’s bisexual nature”.

    But if people in the past didn’t use the term ‘bi’, how did people attracted to more than one gender describe themselves?

    There is no simple answer to this question. Some didn’t use an identity label at all, preferring not to categorise their relationships. Some understood themselves as heterosexual, while others identified as gay or lesbian. Others described themselves using percentages or ratios, such as ‘60:40 gay:heterosexual’. When the term ‘gay’ was first popularised by gay liberationists in the 1970s, it often linked radical politics and same-gender attraction, but didn’t necessarily exclude people who were attracted to, or had relationships with, multiple genders.

    One interviewee I spoke to during my PhD recalled: “There was a general understanding that sexuality was some sort of spectrum, and that people would move along it from time to time”. It’s also important to note that this terminology is particular to English-speakers in the West, and that elsewhere in the world there has been a diverse range of approaches to sexuality and gender that often reject binary categorisations. In many cases, these approaches have been restricted or prohibited as a legacy of colonialism.

    It wasn’t until the late 1970s that the current meaning of bisexuality, meaning attraction to more than one gender, became widely accepted in the UK as “the more common usage”. Around this point, we started to see bi groups and events being established. The UK’s first bi group, London Bisexual Group, was formed in 1981, followed by other groups in Edinburgh (1984), Brighton (1985), Manchester (1986) and Glasgow (1988), as well as a London-based Bisexual Women’s Group. A magazine, Bi-Monthly, was founded, as well as two bi helplines in London and Edinburgh, and the UK’s longest continually-running LGBTQ+ community event, the annual BiCon.

    Bi terminology and politics have continued to evolve since the 1980s.

    The term ‘pansexual’ became popular in the 1990s in response to concerns about bisexuality upholding the gender binary, using the prefix ‘pan’ (‘all’) to suggest attraction that is not limited by gender. But this doesn’t mean that bi people are therefore only attracted to two genders. Some people attracted to more than one gender identify as both bi and pan, some as one or the other, and some as neither. The 1990 manifesto of Anything that Moves, a US bi magazine, explicitly stated that bisexuality shouldn’t be understood as binary: “Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature: that we have “two” sides or that we must be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders”.

    Today, we still see the complex history of bisexuality and the shifting use of language being used to erase bi people’s identities, or suggest that they are a ‘phase’. This has hugely damaging effects on bi people and communities. Stonewall’s Bi Report shows that bi people often report not feeling welcome in LGBTQ+ spaces, and experience much higher rates of discrimination from within the LGBTQ+ community. 43% of bi people have never attended an LGBTQ+ space or event, compared to 29% of gay men and lesbians. Research also indicates that bi people are also more likely to experience poor mental health, in part because of this erasure and discrimination.

    Changing language should never be used as an excuse to dismiss or reject bi or pan people’s identities and attractions. One of my interviewees summed this up as: “Language evolves. September isn’t the seventh month. October isn’t the eighth month. Bisexual doesn’t mean two genders”.

    Instead, understanding how language and communities have evolved reminds us that there is exciting potential for further change and progress in the future, towards greater equality for bi people and other LGBTQ+ people. For me, exploring and understanding this change is what makes learning about our history so important – in LGBT+ History Month, and all year round.

    References and further reading

    • Bi Academic Intervention (ed), The Bisexual Imaginary: Representation, Identity and Desire (1997)
    • Shiri Eisner, Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution (2013)
    • Sigmund Freud translated by James Strachey, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality: 1. The Sexual Aberrations (1915 edition)
    • Kate Harrad (ed), Purple Prose: Bisexuality in Britain (2016)
    • Henry Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume I: Sexual Inversion (1897)
    • Clare Hemmings, Bisexual Spaces: A Geography of Sexuality and Gender (2002)
    • Lachlan MacDowall, ‘Historicising Contemporary Bisexuality’, Journal of Bisexuality (2009)
    • The Off Pink Collective (ed), Bisexual Horizons: Politics, Histories, Lives (1996)
    • Paula C. Rust, Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics (1995)
    • Martha Robinson Rhodes, ‘Bisexuality, Multiple-Gender-Attraction and Gay Liberation Politics in the 1970s’ (2020)
    • Merl Storr (ed), Bisexuality: A Critical Reader (1999)
    • Naomi Tucker (ed), Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries and Visions (1995)

    Complete Article HERE!

    How to Explore Bisexuality If You’ve Only Ever Been in Gay Relationships

    From one queer to another, it’s a minefield out there.

    by Daisy Jones

    There are some wild misconceptions about bisexual people. The first is that you’re either secretly gay or just experimenting. The second is that you are always the sexuality of your current relationship. (If someone’s partner was ginger, you wouldn’t assume they only fancy ginger people, would you?) And the third is that all bisexual people find it hard to act on their queer feelings.

    Of course, that third point can be common (the world is still heteronormative, after all). But it’s not the Universal Bi Experience. Some bi or pansexual people have only ever been in same-gender relationships and wouldn’t even know where to begin when it comes to dating a different gender.

    As someone who has only ever been in long-term relationships with other women – but who doesn’t necessarily fancy one gender – non-gay culture often looks weird and complicated. Why are men sometimes mean to women they like, for example? Do straight people have “tops” and “bottoms”? Is flirting the same, regardless of gender?? Truly, it’s a minefield out there.

    With all of the above in mind, here’s a guide to exploring your bisexuality if you’ve only ever been in same-gender relationships, according to experts.

    Remember that there isn’t just one way to be bi

    The first thing a lot of bi people ask themselves is “but am I bi enough?” says Zachary Zane, sex columnist and sex expert for Promescent. Time to get rid of your preconceived notions about bisexuality. So what if you’ve only ever been in same-gender relationships? There isn’t some secret “bisexuality test” you need to pass.

    “Bisexuality is a spectrum,” says Zane. “All too often, we have this idea that being bi means you’re equally attracted to men and women. That’s not the case – it’s also exclusionary of nonbinary folks!”

    Maybe you’re romantically attracted to one gender, but sexually attracted to all genders. Maybe you only fancy more than one gender sometimes, but not always. It doesn’t matter. You’re bisexuality is still valid even if it doesn’t look like the next person’s.

    Apps! Apps! Apps!

    Not used to being in “straight” spaces? Wouldn’t know how to approach someone of a different gender? Wouldn’t want to be with someone who freaks out when you tell them you’ve only ever been in gay relationships? The great thing about no longer living in the nineties is that we get to bypass all of the aforementioned, with apps.

    “I’d state either in your bio or early upon talking to someone that you’ve only hooked up with people of the same gender, so this is new to you,” says Zane.

    “They may reject you afterward, and so be it, but otherwise, you’ll be nervous when meeting up or hooking up with someone of a different gender for the first time. You want to be as comfortable as possible during the meetup, and the best way to do that is to let them know you’re new to all this!”

    It can be helpful to date other bi folk

    On the other hand, if you can’t be arsed explaining to some straight girl or guy exactly how many times you’ve eaten pussy or dick, Zane says it can be helpful to mainly date or hook up with other bi folk.

    “My advice to everyone bi is to date other bi folk!” he says. “Especially if you’ve experienced biphobia when trying to date. That’s why I recommend listing you’re bi on your dating bios, so you attract other bi folks. As a woman you will get fetishised and constantly solicited for threesomes – just go ahead and block. As a guy, you’ll have signinant fewer matches when you list you’re bi, but you’ll notice you’ll match with many more bi folk, or you’ll match with men, women and non-binary folks who love dating bi guys!”

    You might feel uncomfortable at first – and that’s normal

    Every sexual and/or romantic experience is going to be different, regardless of gender or genitals or whatever else. That said, it’s normal and fine to feel nervous about hooking up or dating a different gender when you’re so used to living, laughing and loving with your own.

    “We have to allow ourselves to sit with that discomfort,” says Tawney Lara, a bisexual sober sex and relationships writer. “I’m a big fan of honesty and communication. Tell your date or potential hook-up that you’re nervous or anxious. If they’re cold about it, they’re not worth your time. If they’re willing to listen and help you talk or laugh through it, they’re worthy of you!”

    Remember: Dating a different gender doesn’t mean you’re no longer queer

    Just because you might enter a “straight-passing” relationship or hook up, doesn’t mean you’re going to immediately start chugging Bud Lights, listening to tropical house and throwing gender reveal parties. You’re just as queer as you were yesterday.

    “I experience biphobia from queer folks as much as I do from straight folks,” says Lara. “Bi folks are so misrepresented (until VERY recently) so that misunderstanding is somewhat understandable.”

    “I think a struggle that happens often is that you no longer feel like you’re queer,” adds Zane.

    “You’ll also struggle in gay spaces. I’m poly, and when I bring my boyfriend to the gay club, it’s awesome. When I bring my girlfriend, I feel like we’re strangers in this space, and we can’t make out otherwise we’ll appear like that disrespectful straight couple occupying a queer space. So my advice is to remember that you are still queer enough even when dating someone of the opposite gender and are in a ‘straight-passing’ relationship.”

    And finally… enjoy yourself

    Sex is supposed to be fun. That’s the whole point of it. It’s not a serious endeavour. It’s actually really weird and funny. So remember that even if you’re doing something new or unexpected, try not to overthink it too much.

    It’s kind of a privilege that anybody gets to share your body in the first place, so as long as everything’s safe and consenting, put your pleasure first.

    Complete Article HERE!

    18 Types of Sexuality To Know for Greater Understanding About Yourself and Others

    By Korin Miller

    There are a number of different types of sexuality, and by learning about each, you can cultivate a better understanding about yourself and others. And since language is always evolving, staying abreast of the different types of sexuality is important for both creating an authentic relationship with yourself and being an inclusive ally for all people. “The constantly evolving lexicon provides more options that can help people explore themselves,” says Corey Flanders, PhD, sexual-health disparities researcher and associate professor of psychology and education at Mount Holyoke College. “The range of sexuality terms available means that more people will find something that resonates with their experience.”

    Words matter, and when those words connect to nuanced forms of identity, they matter even more. Such is the case for why it’s so important for all people to understand the different types of sexuality. To contextualize it differently, consider Dr. Flanders’ following example about ice cream: “I had a teacher once who described it in terms of ice cream flavors,” she says. “What if your favorite ice cream flavor was kale, but you never knew that about yourself because it was never an option? And then one day, maybe you come across kale ice cream and love it, and now understand yourself as a person whose favorite ice cream is kale-flavored.”

    “Sexuality is full of diversity, and awareness of different types helps build acceptance and understanding of these differences.” —Shannon Chavez, PsyD, sexologist

    The implications of understanding the different types of sexuality are, of course, further reaching and more important than ice cream flavors. “Sexuality is full of diversity, and awareness of different types helps build acceptance and understanding of these differences,” says Shannon Chavez, PsyD, resident sex therapist with K-Y. “It breaks down stereotypes, judgments, and myths about different sexual populations. Sexuality is a central part of your identity and who you are, and learning more about your own sexuality as well as others’ can be an empowering and positive experience.”

    To be sure, understanding your own sexuality can be beneficial for myriad reasons. It “can help you connect to other folks who share a similar experience, which we know is important for supporting the health and well-being of queer people,” Dr. Flanders says. “For me personally, I grew up in a time and a place where bisexuality and queerness weren’t options that were known to me. Once I met people who used those terms to describe themselves, it provided a framework for me to understand myself and my sexuality in a way that enabled me to communicate it to myself and others.”

    And in fact, learning about the types of sexuality—even if you feel you already have a strong understanding of your own identity—can help destigmatize and remove shame surrounding the space for others. “I do believe we are going through a new sexual revolution where people are more open with their unique identities, bringing awareness to pronouns and gender identities, and freedom to express who you are sexually without fear and shame,” Dr. Chavez says.

    While, again, the types of sexuality are constantly evolving and growing, below, you can find a breakdown of many up-to-date terms and their meaning, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the University of Connecticut’s Rainbow Center:

    18 types of sexuality to know about for a deeper understanding of yourself and others

    1. Allosexual

    This is a person who experiences sexual attraction.

    2. Aromantic

    An aromantic is one of many romantic orientations that describes someone who experiences little or no romantic attraction to another person.

    3. Androsexual

    An androsexual is sexually attracted to men or masculinity.

    4. Asexual

    People who are asexual have a lack of attraction to other people.

    5. Bicurious

    A person who is bicurious is interested in or curious about having sex with someone whose sex or gender is different from their usual sexual partners.

    6. Bisexual

    A bisexual is someone who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to more than one sex, gender, or gender identity. This is a term that is sometimes used interchangeably with “pansexual,” which more specifically describes someone who is attracted to people without regard to their gender identity.

    7. Demiromantic

    This is a person who has little or no ability to feel romantically attracted to someone until they form a strong sexual or emotional connection with a person.

    8. Demisexual

    A demisexual does not experience sexual attraction until they have a strong romantic connection with someone.

    9. Gay

    A person who is gay is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to people of the same gender identity. This term is often used by men, women, and non-binary people.

    10. Heteroflexible

    People who are heteroflexible often identify as heterosexual but may experience situational attraction that falls outside of that.

    11. Heterosexual

    This term describes people who identify as men who are attracted to people who identify as women, and vice versa.

    12. Lesbian

    A lesbian is someone who identifies a woman or as non-binary who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to other women. The term is used by women and non-binary people.

    13. LGBTQ

    This acronym is used for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.”

    14. Pansexual

    A pansexual is a person who has the potential for emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to people of any gender identity or sexual orientation.

    15. Queer

    This term describes a spectrum of sexual identities other than exclusively heterosexual.

    16. Questioning

    People who consider themselves questioning are currently exploring their sexual orientation.

    17. Same-gender loving

    This is a term that’s used by some people instead of “lesbian,” “gay,” or “bisexual” to explain their attraction to someone of the same gender identity.

    18. Skoliosexual

    A person who is skoliosexual is attracted to people who are non-binary.

    Complete Article HERE!

    Choosing Everything

    — Why Queerness Is Freedom To Me

    By Rebecca Woolf

    First, I want to give thanks to all the queer people who didn’t have the luxury of being offered opportunities to write essays about their queerness, and certainly not for pay. I recognize that the privilege I have in writing such an essay, specifically about mid-life queer awakening, is because of all the queer activists who refused to be minimized. I honor every person who has a story they cannot tell, and every person who has one, but was refused a platform — or wasn’t ever afforded the decency of having their humanity recognized.

    The first time I had sex with a woman I was 38 years old. This is not counting the times I participated in male-gaze-y sexual situations that were so performative I instinctively duck my head as I write this out of cringe.

    In other words, when I was younger, I got drunk and felt up my friends in front of dudes sometimes. Because I knew they would think it was hot.

    Throughout my early twenties, I was almost always the straight girl in a sea of gays. And while I was always attracted to women, I was also petrified of them. I was so detached sexually at that point in my life that the idea of connecting with a person anything like me — even if only in body — was a paralyzing thought.

    Beyond that, from the vantage point of a femme, straight-identifying white woman who had no experience with homophobia save for speaking out against it on behalf of my friends, it felt disingenuous for me to identify as anyone other than this version of myself: straight, but up for experimenting.

    If I were to sexually identify my early 20-something self now, though, it would be “imposter.”  I was a woman masquerading as whatever the man I was fucking was turned on by; unable to articulate her own wants and needs and, frankly, unsure of what they even were.

    But all of that changed when, after 14 years of marriage, I became single again at 37. What a relief it was to feel as if I could start over. I was my new life partner now, and to her I solemnly swore that the only gaze I would prioritize from now on was my own.

    Entering a sort of reclamation phase, I opened myself up to every possible situation that excited me. There would be no labels on any of it. No expectations. Just freedom to move about the cabin without turbulence.

    Unbuckled, wandering me.

    Heteroflexible was a term I first heard via the sex positive dating app Feeld, and it was one that resonated immediately. It felt peripherally queer. Like strapping training wheels to my bike and exploring a new cul-de-sac. Beyond that, it suggested a sort of indefinability which appealed to the part of me who never wanted to be labeled again.

    Sexually and otherwise, it felt like a misrepresentation for me to identify with a community that had been marginalized in a way I never felt I was — friends who had been kicked out of their homes, banished from their churches, spat on, beaten up or worse, all for coming out of the closet.

    And as a cis, white, hetero-passing person, who has never struggled in the way so many of my friends have, I have found myself questioning whether or not there was even a need for people like me to come out. I live in Los Angeles after all. Queerness in our community is the norm. I can count how many straight-identifying girlfriends I have on one hand. Straightness comes as more of a surprise, if I’m being honest.

    Not that we are, in any way, living in a post-biphobic society. Statistically speaking, bisexual people, specifically those with cis partners are the least likely to come out.

    And it wasn’t until recently that it occurred to me that in the same way I claimed to be an imposter in my early-twenties — centering the male gaze as the only gaze that mattered — I found myself similarly centering all queer voices save for the ones I personally identified with: bisexual cis women.

    Because we can pass as straight. Because we tend to engage in heteronormative sex. Because because because because because….

    It wasn’t until I had my first solo, sexual, no-men-in-the-room experience that I realized, Wait, no, THIS is for me.

    This is for me.

    At one point I felt as if I’d left my body, so overwhelmed was I by the euphoria of connecting to another woman in a way I never had before.

    When it was over, I cried. Beyond the sexual dynamic between women being so profoundly different, I felt like I had been reborn in my own image. The power of experiencing sex without men was overwhelming to me — not because I do not love sex with men but because, up until that point, sexual experiences without men didn’t exist.

    It felt a bit like the dreams I sometimes have, where after years of living in the same house, I discover another room that had been there all along. How could I have missed this? Where have I been all my life?

    This, of course, led to more experiences, which led to a love affair — my first and also hers — a coming-together so overwhelming I assumed, I would only ever love women after this.

    I am done with men! There’s no going back! Cheers to a future with women ONLY.

    But it wasn’t true, and months later, I am once again in a relationship with a cis man — one I happen to love very much.

    I am now extremely aware of the fluidity of my sexuality, which is not unlike my fluidity when it comes to intimate relationships — the wanting, the needing of an open door. And a partner who not only respects that, but desires the same thing.

    Many women who identify as bi, pan, or queer feel like the nuances of having a non-binary sexuality precludes them from being a part of the conversation. When you’re not queer enough to be gay and you’re not straight enough to be straight, your voice tends to come out as a whisper, your experience less validated. Perhaps because we have confused fluidity with fickleness; recognizing our inability to commit to a team without celebrating what that really means.

    And even though I was in free-fall, life-altering-first-love with a woman, I found myself doing what I’d been working so hard NOT to do: pushing myself off the side, standing on the periphery, insisting that my experience was inconsequential. Not valid enough. As a person who claimed to be inclusive, why did I have such a hard time including myself?

    There’s a conundrum in feeling empowered by new freedoms and unworthy of experiencing sexual relationships that might be unfamiliar: Because so many of us have spent years in traditional relationships, we never had the opportunities to pursue them. It’s not because we haven’t wanted to, but rather because monogamous heteronormative relationships have not allowed us to.

    It is because of this that, for many of us, we don’t know where to begin. Additionally, it is not uncommon for women to come into our sexuality later in life, perhaps because we realize how much of it has been wrapped up in performative heteronormativity. We are told our early experiences were just a phase (Oh, her? That was just her “experimenting” in college) while also struggling with our own internalized monosexism, which suggests exclusive heterosexuality and/or homosexuality is superior or more legitimate because it’s specific. This is not to mention the various forms of biphobia claiming that women are only attracted to other women because of the trauma we’ve experienced with men.

    And, because we are so conditioned to get specific — to pick a team — we still feel, even in 2021, that wanting sexual relationships with people of different genders, often simultaneously, makes us indecisive when in reality, many of us, after years of struggling, have finally arrived as our whole selves.

    It makes sense if you think about how our culture is so obsessed not only with binaries, but also with choosing one thing. We don’t think twice about asking our children what their favorite color is. Or asking our date about their favorite film. We want so badly for people to choose, to be decisive about one person or one gender or one sexual orientation. And then we get confused when The One isn’t enough, when we realize we don’t work that way.

    Queerness isn’t just about sexuality and gender. It’s also about embracing healthy lifestyles that do not fit into a white, patriarchal, heteronormative box. This goes beyond intimate partnerships and intersects with inclusion of all people who deserve love, autonomy, pleasure, and joy.

    And isn’t that the whole point of Pride? To pull at the seams of limitation so that everyone, regardless of their past experiences, can pour through the ever-expanding opening? So that all humans — regardless of gender expression or sexual orientation — can experience such moments of intense realization without the fear of repercussions? I want everyone who feels similarly to be able to explore their feelings unencumbered, to experience the euphoria of connection without obstruction.

    I have long made an effort to center those who have always identified as queer. But, as a way to understand how to include myself — while also being mindful of the many privileges I possess as someone who has never had to fight against anyone else’s bias to love who I love — I have also spent this time embracing my own version of heteronormative defiance. It’s one that is personal to me, and no one else. It’s a reminder to myself that a person’s truth is theirs to experience, define, and prioritize — not on the periphery of other people’s experience, but to center as our own.

    All of this is why, in the end, I knocked the heteroflexible from my dating bio and replaced it with queer.

    It is a beautiful thing to stay open. To liberate ourselves from all gazes beyond our own. That’s queerness to me. It’s about embracing the nuances of sexuality and gender and defining ourselves as indefinable. It’s about allowing ourselves to trust our bodies, to listen to our own wants and needs — especially as women and mothers who have centered everyone else’s for so long, only to wake up and realize we have never even asked ourselves what we want out of love — out of sex; out of connection.

    And, as we collectively celebrate Pride this month, no matter where we are in our journey and what it took to get to queerness, may we remember that Pride was always a protest against the puritanical fear of queer liberation, acceptance and joy. It has always been a celebration of freedom to live and love and fuck with abandon, in bodies that are worthy of uninhibited truth — filtered through no one’s gaze but our own.

    Complete Article HERE!

    How To Explore Your Sexuality In A Personal And Fulfilling Way

    Hint: Labels don’t matter.

    By

    Maybe you got a tingle down there during Portrait of a Lady on Fire (#relatable). Perhaps you’ve only been attracted to women your whole life, but now you’re having wild sex dreams feat. your swoony male Peloton instructor. Or maybe you’ve been smooching people across the gender spectrum for years, and are just now trying to find a label that fits. Whatever the reason, if you’re exploring your sexuality (or want to be), you’ve landed in the right place.

    “It is absolutely normal and common to explore your sexuality to figure out what and who you like and don’t like at one or more point in your life,” says queer sex educator Marla Renee Stewart, MA, a sexpert for Lovers adult wellness brand and retailer. In fact, one 12,000 person survey published in Journal of Sex Research found that sexuality changes substantially (substantially!) between adolescence and early twenties, and then again from early twenties to late twenties, which suggests that exploring your sexuality is not just common, but necessary in order to achieve self-knowing.

    As for WTF your sexuality is exactly? Washington-based sex therapist Katrina Knizek says sexuality is a big, broad term that names a number of things. These include: who you are sexually attracted to, who you are romantically attracted to, your preferred relationship structure, how you like to be touched, the time of day you like to have sex, your erotic content preferences, your past and current beliefs about sex, your kinks and fetishes, your past sexual experiences, and more.

    But typically, when people talk about ~exploring their sexuality~, they want to figure out who they have the capacity to be sexually, romantically, or emotionally attracted to (a.k.a their sexual orientation), Knizek says. And if that’s why you’re here, you’re in luck: Ahead, queer sex educators and therapists offer tips to help you Dora The Explorer your sexual orientation.

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    First of all, do I even need to label my sexuality?

    Big nope! For some folks, labels offer identity security. Gabi, 28, Boston, says, “For me, identifying as bisexual feels like coming home.” Using the term, she explains, allows her to own and feel valid in her lived experiences.

    “Labeling yourself also offers the benefits of helping you more easily find people with similar experiences to enter a community with,” says Knizek. (Think: lesbian book club or bisexual bowlers.) Having a label(s) can also be helpful when you’re actively dating. “It gives you something to put in your Tinder bio, or allows you to name the genders you’re interested in if someone offers to set you up,” she adds.

    At the same time, others find sexuality labels suffocating. “I’ve dated people—women, men, and non-binary people—but I don’t want to identify as bisexual, pansexual, or omnisexual because labeling myself feels like boxing myself in,” Ash, 22, Hartford says.

    Even still, some people find one label ineffective at naming their desires, and choose to stack two or more labels together. Personally, I identify as a queer, bisexual dyke because the trio names my lived experience better than any label individually.

    Before you decide to buck labels altogether or add one (or more) of them to your identity laundry list, you should know what the common sexual orientation terms are. Here are several to consider:

    • Allosexual: The opposite of asexual, people who are allosexual regularly experience sexual attraction or desire.
    • Asexual: Asexuality is an identity and/or orientation that includes individuals who don’t experience sexual attraction to anyone, of any gender.
    • Bicurious: Bicurious is a label for folks who are exploring whether or not they are bisexual. Typically, “bicurious” is seen as a temporary identity.
    • Bisexual: Describes people who have the capacity for sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction to people with genders similar to their own, and dissimilar to their own. Sometimes also defined as attraction to two or more genders.
    • Demisexual: An orientation on the asexuality spectrum, demisexuality describes people who only have the capacity to experience sexual attraction towards someone(s) they already have a romantic or emotional connection with.
    • Fluid: Describes people whose sexual orientation changes over time, or is constantly in flux.
    • Gay: Names individuals who are sexually attracted to individuals with genders that are the same or similar to their own.
    • Graysexual: Also on the asexuality spectrum, “graysexuality” is a term people use if they rarely experience sexual attraction.
    • Lesbian: The most historically accurate definition of lesbian is non-men who are attracted to other non-men. But sometimes, the term is also defined as women who experience attraction to people of the same or similar gender.
    • Omnisexual: Used to describe individuals who have the potential to be attracted to folks of all genders.
    • Pansexual: Names people who can experience attraction to any person, regardless of their gender.
    • Queer: An umbrella term someone might use if they are not heterosexual, not allosexual, or not cisgender. Sometimes used by people who don’t fit neatly into any other sexual orientation category.
    • Questioning: A temporary label for someone who is currently curious about their sexuality.

    Okay, what if want to explore my sexuality, but I’m in a relationship?

    Fingers crossed it’s a happy, healthy, and fulfilling one. And if your ‘ship is, good news: It’s still entirely possible to explore your sexuality and/or sexual orientation while boo-ed up. That holds true whether you’re in a monogamous relationship (meaning, you are each other’s one and only), or in an open or polyamorous relationship (you’re able to explore other people sexually, romantically, and/or emotionally).

    “Your sexual orientation exists and is valid whether you are actively dating and sleeping with the gender, or all the genders you’re attracted to,” says Knizek. In other words, you’re still bisexual if you’re only sleeping with someone of a different gender than you, and you can still be lesbian if currently dating a man. “Self-identification, not current or past relationship or sexual history, determines sexual orientation,” she says. Noted!

    How exactly can I explore my sexuality?

    To start your sexploration, Knizek recommends filling your social feed with folks across the sexuality spectrum. “These influencers will give you a sense of who you can be, or what your future might look like,” she says. So, as you scroll, notice which creators you see yourself in.

    If you’re a Very Offline Person™ (jelly!), you could intentionally and respectfully put yourself in queer spaces. For instance, you might grab a beer at your local queer bar, or buy your next read from a queer-owned bookstore. Also worth trying: listening to an LGBTQ podcast.

    Next, reflect, reflect, and reflect some more. Knizek suggests spending some time noodling or penning on questions like:

    • Who do I feel most magnetically drawn to in my life?
    • In what ways do I want to explore my sexuality?
    • Where did I learn compulsory heterosexuality?
    • What label(s) feel good coming out of my mouth?

    Oh, and don’t forget, you can masturbate! Defined as any practice of self-pleasure, a regular masturbation practice can help you understand what and who turns you on. “As you touch yourself, fantasize about a variety of genders, and watch straight and queer (ethical) porn, to discover who you’re most drawn to,” says Knizek.

    Do I need to come out?

    You may want to tell someone(s) that you’re currently exploring your sexuality, or that you did explore your sexuality and settled on a new label(s). Or, you may not want to. Either way, you don’t need to do anything. “It’s a personal decision,” says Knizek.

    On one hand, “sharing your sexuality with other people can be a powerful, wonderful, and affirming experience,” she says. On the other, if the receiver doesn’t respond to the news with the kindness you deserve (*side eye*), it can also be a scary, stability-slashing experience.

    Stewart’s suggestion: “If you are dependent on someone or if coming out could put you in danger, weigh the benefits and consequences of sharing this information to ensure your own personal safety.” And if telling someone does result in a sticky situation, do what you can to get to a place of safety ASAP. Maybe even call The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth service center, at 866-488-7386 for help or guidance.

    The bottom line: Knizek emphasizes that while many people are nervous about exploring their sexuality, the process “can be fun and fulfilling.” And who knows? You might have some great solo, partnered, or multi-partnered nookie along the way—or simply find a new group of pals.

    Complete Article HERE!

    The push for LGBTQ equality began long before Stonewall

    The value of restoring the LGBTQ rights movement’s radical roots

    By Aaron S. Lecklider

    The annual raising of rainbow flags outside America’s strip malls and the bounty of LGBTQ-friendly swag being hawked inside them can only mean one thing: Pride month is upon us. Ostensibly commemorating the birth of the gay liberation movement, Pride also points to the outsize influence of Stonewall as a singular catalyst for sparking LGBTQ liberation.

    And yet, there were activists advocating for LGBTQ Americans decades before the gay liberation movement of the 1960s. This history has been largely forgotten, because their work was tied to a radical social movement critiquing capitalism.

    Thanks to the Cold War and the “Red Scare,” gay rights activists made a calculated decision in the 1950s to cut ties with this movement and to purge this history from the story of the fight for LGBTQ rights. While that strategy might have been politically advantageous for some, reclaiming radical queer history is essential to understanding the full scope of LGBTQ lives and politics in the 20th century.

    In 1932, leftist journalist John Pittman published “Prejudice Against Homosexuals” in his radical Black newspaper, the Spokesman. “What Negroes and homosexuals both desire,” Pittman wrote, “is to be regarded as human beings with the rights and liberties of human beings, including the right to be let alone, to enjoy life in the way most agreeable and pleasant, to live secure from interference and insult.”

    Prejudice against gay and lesbian Americans, Pittman argued, was anathema to social justice. As a Black leftist who was committed to revolutionary politics, Pittman well understood how prejudice structured American life, and he was unyielding in his opposition to all its forms.

    One reason that leftists — communists, socialists, anarchists and labor organizers especially — concerned themselves with sexual politics was because radicals often found themselves in shared urban spaces with gay men and lesbians, notably local YMCAs and public parks. According to Jim Kepner, a gay leftist journalist, places such as Pershing Square in Los Angeles were available for “public open-air debate, officially designated as a ‘free speech area,’ ostensibly free from police harassment of people whose views they might find offensive, and also popular for gay cruising.”

    These spaces reflected how marginalization from mainstream American life made leftists and LGBTQ Americans into strange bedfellows.

    Once gay men and lesbians and radicals found one another, new worlds opened up to them. John Malcolm Brinnin and Kimon Friar, both members of the Young Communist League, developed an intimate partnership and observed other Depression-era same-sex couples who were also “consciously trying to mold the course of their relationship in channels that will fit their new sense of responsibility since they have become Marxists.” Betty Millard described her shared passions for radicalism and same-sex intimacy in her diary. “Socialism & sex is what I want all right,” she wrote in 1934. “I just didn’t happen to explain to him which sex.” The line between sexual and revolutionary desire was so often blurred.

    LGBTQ people were drawn deeper into the orbit of the left because they, too, were cast as deviant in American society. “I’m a gay fellow, so what do I care about social position?” a gay man wrote in a 1949 letter. “I don’t want to go to any tea parties.” Allying with the radical left was less marginalizing to those who already lived on the margins of American society. In fact, sexuality and communist leanings were both things that kept people closeted.

    One such man was Ted Rolfs, a member of the Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), a radical labor union that was well-known in the 1940s for its disproportionately Black and gay membership. “On the San Francisco waterfront,” one member reported, “the word was that the Marine Cooks and Stewards union was a third red, a third Black, and a third queer.”

    That unique composition shaped the politics of the union. “If you let them red-bait,” Revels Cayton, a prominent Black MCS member cautioned, “they’ll race-bait, and if you let them race-bait, they’ll queen-bait. These are all connected, and that’s why we have to stick together.”

    The existential threat posed by the rise of Nazism shifted the focus of American radicals away from revolution to anti-fascism, which meant building alliances with liberals promoting democracy. Edward Dahlberg published a radical novel, “Those Who Perish,” in 1934 — one year after Hitler’s rise — depicting a gay man at the center of the anti-fascist struggle. Willard Motley, a Black radical writer, gave an anti-fascist speech in the 1940s in which he listed gay men and lesbians among other groups whom Americans “love to hate.” Gay men such as Will Aalto and David McKelvy White joined international soldiers in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War.

    In 1951, it was out of this populist milieu that a group of former communists built on their experiences opposing fascism to form Mattachine, an organization explicitly advocating for gay rights. In 1954, a writer in ONE Letter, a movement newsletter, described its founders as “young communists with a rage to get out and do something active like picketing and get themselves clobbered and perhaps laid.” In one of its earliest actions, Mattachine teamed up with the Los Angeles chapter of the Civil Rights Congress, an organization with deep connections to the U.S. Communist Party, to protest the entrapment of five Mexican American boys arrested in Echo Park.

    Yet this alliance was short-lived. In 1953, Mattachine’s founding members were ejected from the organization over concerns about their histories with the Communist Party, and the organization shifted focus to positioning gay men and lesbians as upstanding citizens. The Cold War’s impact on LGBTQ Americans is often remembered through the lens of the “lavender” scare that purged gay employees from the U.S. State Department. But its influence was no less significant in shaping the fledgling homophile movement, an emergent coterie of new organizations sharing the goal of advancing gay rights through full-throated claims to citizenship.

    Anti-gay and anti-communist conservatives invoked historical connections between radicals and gay men and lesbians to discredit both groups. “The Homosexual International began to gnaw at the sinews of the state in the 1930s,” one right-wing journalist correctly, but perniciously, wrote in 1960. These sorts of attacks prompted homophile activists to distance themselves from earlier leftists who had spoken out in defense of gay men and lesbians. “Communism and homosexuality,” the editors of ONE Magazine, a nationally circulated homophile publication, declared in 1960, “are contradictory and inimical.”

    By the 1960s, members of Mattachine were fully enlisted as stalwart Cold Warriors, using these anti-communist credentials to push for citizenship rights. While earlier leftists had folded gay men and lesbians into a movement advocating for the end of predatory capitalism, the advance of racial justice and the liberation of the working class, the homophile movement sided with those who saw gay rights as disconnected from broader revolutionary struggles. Full incorporation into mainstream American life became their primary goal.

    The post-Stonewall gay liberation movement restored some of the radical energy that animated earlier leftists seeking to align sexual politics with radical social change. There is much in that moment that is worth celebrating. Yet ongoing debates about the radical roots of contemporary queer politics too often overlook connections between LGBTQ rights and the left that appeared in the decades before the 1960s.

    That’s because the powerful effects of McCarthyism continue to shape which stories get told and whose lives are remembered. The radical LGBTQ political tradition, both its rise and fall, is a history we can take pride in, but one that might require us to take stock as well.

    Complete Article HERE!

    41 homophobic things straight people say every day without realising

    ‘Okay but who’s the man and who’s the woman?’

    By Izzy Schifano, Georgia Mooney & Harrison Brocklehurst

    You’re probably homophobic. Even if you don’t think you are, or if you don’t mean to be, I guarantee that on a regular basis you say homophobic things you don’t even realise are actually incredibly rude and harmful. LGBTQ+ people get these casually homophobic questions and comments from straight people every single day, and we’re sick and tired of it.

    From playground stuff loads of people still seem to have not grown out of, like “no homo” and “that’s so gay”, to calling us your “gay best friend”, questioning if our sexuality is legitimate, or asking in-depth questions about our sex lives. If you’re really an ally, pay attention when we ask you not to say these things; actually listen and understand what we’re explaining to you; and please, please, just stop saying all of them.

    Here are 41 homophobic things straight people say to us every single day:

    ‘That’s so gay’

    Sorry, I didn’t realise we were still in primary school – not that it was acceptable to say this then, either. I can’t quite believe we still need to explain this, but if you’re using “gay” in a negative way when what you really mean is “that’s so annoying/stupid/lame”, you’re literally just being homophobic.

    ‘I wish they were fully straight’

    The only thing bi people “fully” are, is fully bi.

    ‘Queer’

    Yes many LGBTQ+ people have reclaimed the word – but you can’t say it if you’re not gay, hun.

    And whilst we’re at it, don’t use ‘dyke, poof, fag or twink’ either

    Just because some queer people choose to use these words when referring to themselves, again – it’s not a free pass for you to say it. If it’s not you, you can’t say it. They’re literally slurs, and we use some of them very loosely than their original meanings.

    ‘What does [insert gay slang here] mean?’

    Not every queer person is a homosexual dictionary. If you really want to know, Google it.

    ‘You’re gay? What a waste’

    This really isn’t the compliment you think it is – it’s just prejudice. Why can’t I be attractive and gay? Sorry I didn’t realise I existed literally just for you to try and get with.  It’s a selfish thing to say, it’s an insult with casual homophobia thrown in there.

    ‘Omg you have to help me decide what to wear’

    Sweetheart just because I am gay, it doesn’t mean I double as the cast of Queer Eye.

    ‘I bet I could turn you’

    You really couldn’t, trust me.

    ‘Who’s the man and who’s the woman?’

    I hate to break it to you, but we’re both the same gender – that’s kind of the whole point.

    ‘But you look straight/you don’t look gay!’

    A lot of masculine queer men and feminine queer women get this and even though it’s almost always intended as a compliment, it doesn’t feel like one to us. Gay people come in all shapes and sizes, there’s no need to be patronising and tell us we don’t fit the stereotypical queer person.

    Also if you’re literally saying we don’t look gay as a good thing – that means you think it’s bad to look gay. Careful hun, your homophobia is showing.

    ‘I wish I was a lesbian! You’re so lucky you don’t have to deal with men’

    If I had £1 for every time a straight girl said this to me, I’d be able to go live on a private island where I never had to see a heterosexual ever again. Okay so we all get men are annoying, but you wish you could have a girlfriend and risk getting hate crimed every time you walk down the street? Cool cool cool.

    ‘It’s fine you’re gay, but don’t hit on me’

    And “do you fancy me?” – I promise you luv, you’re not that attractive.

    ‘I always knew you were’

    What gave it away?

    On a real though, so many queer people get this when they come out – and it’s not a compliment. Okay so you reckon you clocked something that took me literally years to figure out and accept about myself? Do you want a medal?

    ‘When did you decide to be gay?’

    Around the same time you made the conscious choice to be straight, I think!

    No one chooses their sexuality, it’s who we are – just like you. Grow up.

    ‘What was it like when you came out?’

    What makes you assume I feel comfortable enough around you to share such a personal detail about me? I get it, some queer people like talking about stuff like this to help normalise it, but not all of us are.

    Coming out is incredibly emotional and difficult – like with anything personal, a lot of us need to establish a relationship with someone before answering these questions.

    homophobic things straight people say

    ‘It’s just a phase’

    Yes sexuality is fluid and can change over time, that’s fine. But how would you feel if I told you being straight and being attracted to your boyfriend was “just a phase” you were going to “grow out of” soon?

    ‘Are you like 50/50?’

    See also, bi people being asked: “So what percentage do you like men, and what percentage do you like women?”

    ‘Why are you single? You’re bi’

    Some people literally say that it should be easy for bi people to find partners, just because they’re bi. Just because someone’s attracted to more than one gender, that doesn’t mean they don’t have standards.

    ‘Are you a top or a bottom?’

    I don’t ask you for in-depth details of how you and Tom have sex, Ellen, so you really don’t need to ask me for mine.

    ‘Lesbian sex doesn’t count’

    There are loads of different ways different people can have sex, and they all count. If we say it’s sex, it’s sex – it’s not up to you to question it.

    ‘How does sex with girls work?’

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: GOOGLE IT XX

    ‘I watch lesbian porn, but I’m not gay’

    Ah yes, I remember my first post-lesbian porn panic. We’ve all been there. You don’t need to worry, I’m not going to try and graft you just because you’ve seen two women have sex on the internet. But I appreciate you confirming your heterosexuality nonetheless.

    ‘But don’t you want to have children?’

    You might not know this but queer people can actually have children, biological or not, the same as straight people.

    ‘Omg I love gays!’

    You “love” gays?? Right but you saying this makes me feel like you don’t love me one single bit.

    ‘Will you be my gay best friend?’

    Why do I have to be your “gay” best friend? Can’t we just drop the category and be friends? Or should I call you my “straight” best friend???

    ‘How far have you transitioned?’

    The only genitals you should be concerned with are your own. Fuck off.

    ‘Bi people are just selfish’

    Being bi doesn’t make you greedy, selfish, or anything else. And while we’re at it – bi people are no more likely to cheat than anyone else, gay or straight.

    homophobic things straight people say

    ‘Can I watch you have sex?’

    Um, no?

    ‘Have you tried the other gender? You might actually like it’

    Have you tried sleeping with the same gender? You might actually like it x

    ‘I like gay people, but not when they’re too in your face with it’

    Okay so we’re not allowed to hold hands, talk about being gay or even think about mentioning going to Pride, but when Fiat 500 Lucy and Football Twitter Jack start pretty much shagging in a club, we’re meant to be okay with that?

    ‘You’re gay but you don’t have to make it your whole personality’

    Okay well I can assure you it isn’t – but who even cares if it is? Sexuality is a massive part of your identity, and if you think there’s something wrong with being out and proud then you’re just homophobic.

    Using someone’s deadname

    If you don’t know what a deadname is, it’s the name someone was given at birth, which a trans person has changed as part of their transition.

    Using someone’s deadname, or their wrong pronouns, is just straight-up transphobic. Deadnaming is so harmful. It can cause discomfort that could be associated with that person’s old name. It’s not that hard to just use whatever name someone prefers, trust me.

    ‘He’s a bad type of gay’

    You can be bad and gay, just like you can be bad and straight. But the two aren’t linked and there’s literally just no such thing as a “bad gay”.

    ‘You’re not asexual, you just haven’t met the right person yet’

    If someone is asexual, their sexual feelings won’t just magically appear out of thin air one day. Just like gender, sexuality is a spectrum too. Some asexuals have sex and some of them don’t – it’s not your job to comment on it.

    homophobic things straight people say

    ‘No homo’

    Same energy “that’s so gay”, it’s mainstream and very immature. It’s homophobic and offensive. It usually follows something which men aren’t stereotypically ‘meant’ to do, like crying or showing their mates affection. It doesn’t make you less of a man if you show emotion, just like it doesn’t make you less of a man if you’re gay. Just grow up.

    ‘I experimented with girls in first year!’

    My sexual identity isn’t your experiment.

    ‘I don’t want to put my pronouns in my Insta bio in case people think I’m gay’

    Right so first things first – everyone has pronouns, whether you’re straight or gay, cis or trans. Putting yours on your social media, email signature and other places helps normalise it, which can massively help trans and non-binary people and make things more inclusive for everyone.

    Secondly – who cares if anyone thinks you’re gay, trans or anything else? If you’re worried about people saying that to you, it means you think there’s something wrong with being gay that you don’t want to be associated with.

    ‘How do you know you’re gay?’

    How do you know you’re straight?

    ‘Are you sure you’re gay?’

    This is just incredibly rude to ask. A lot of us have found it extremely difficult getting to the place we’re at now, we go through a lot of uncertainty and internalised homophobia to reach a place of comfort.

    If someone tells you they’re gay, it is not your place to question or unpack how they feel. Just accept us as who we are and what we tell you.

    ‘You fancy everyone, you must have loads of threesomes’

    Maybe I do have threesomes, but I’m not about to have one with you and your crusty boyfriend, Emily.

    ‘You can date girls, I don’t mind’

    Bisexual woman are often told by the straight men they date that they can also kiss/sleep with/date other women. If they’re also cool with you doing this with men, if you’re poly or in an open relationship, that’s fine.

    But more often than not, these men who are encouraging you to get with women would kick off if you did the same with men. They let you do it because they think girls kissing each other is “hot”, and also often because they don’t see queer female relationships as “serious” or legitimate.

    Complete Article HERE!

    As A Queer Person, Relationship Anarchy Helped Me Create The Family I Need

    by Kori Nicole Williams

    Like so many other people in the LGBTQ+ community, I grew up feeling like I had to be straight. Being straight is treated as the “default,” for lack of a better term, and I had always been attracted to guys as a teen. It was only when I got to college that I realized I could be attracted to other genders—and that realization overflowed into questioning all my other kinds of relationships, including nonromantic ones.

    When I started to question and understand my sexuality, it led me to question the other relationships in my life as well, why I prioritized them as I did, and why I felt the need to do so.

    I belong to a family, like so many others, where everyone is just assumed to be straight and cisgender and expected to get married and have kids. Nothing else was ever even talked about. So during my time of self-discovery in college, I was too scared to speak to my family about my sexuality because I didn’t want to be judged or shunned by any of them. On top of worrying about what my family would think, I identified as pansexual, and I doubted anyone in my family had even heard that word back then.

    But in college, I was meeting people who lived their lives outside the gender binary, who were loving individuals of all genders, and who would accept me for who I was, whatever that looked like. I was building new friendships with people who I, in time, began to see as family. One of them is the first person I ever came out to.

    I think it was this experience that caused a shift in my mindset around relationships—and why I began to embrace the concept of relationship anarchy.

    Family is more than just what blood runs through our veins.

    Relationship anarchy is a term for viewing all relationships as having no rules other than the ones all involved parties agreed to. Although relationship anarchy is often used in the context of ethical nonmonogamy, relationship anarchy can apply across relationships with family members, friends, and others. Essentially, it refers to viewing all relationship types as equal. The importance of a relationship doesn’t have more or less value because of the presence of blood or sex. It relies solely on your bond with that person.

    I’m close to my family, sure. I figured I was supposed to be. But at the time I was exploring my sexuality, I didn’t feel like my emotions were safe with them. On the other hand, I had cemented bonds with people with who I had no fear. We were exploring our thoughts and beliefs together, and anything I said was something we could talk about openly. The buds of relationship anarchy were forming.

    Think of that old saying, “Blood is thicker than water.” It’s meant to convey the idea that family always comes first. But I choose to live by another saying: The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” This phrase says the exact opposite. Relationships with family aren’t more important just because of a shared bloodline.

    For some, relationship anarchy seems like a radical idea. But for me, it’s more logical than anything. It’s used by those who reject societal expectations of how close people are supposed to be to others.

    Realizing I’m a member of the LGBTQ+ community inadvertently caused a shift in my thought process. Just like I was learning that I didn’t have to honor the traditional markers for what being “masculine” or “feminine” was supposed to be, I was also learning that I didn’t need to abide by the pre-distributed labels placed on certain types of relationships. Not only did I begin to look at romantic and sexual relationships differently, but I began to understand that my previous view of what’s an important relationship was based on societal expectations: that I should love someone just because we’re related by blood, or that none of my friends who have been there for me for years (and vice versa) could ever come close to the distant relative I only see during the holidays.

    For me, the idea of ditching the relationship hierarchies in favor of relationship anarchy was easy enough to adopt, although my family has never been on board. My mom’s always been one to say that friends come and go. At the end of the day, family is all you have, and you have to keep them close, she would say. My grandmother also hammered this idea home, saying that my “little friends” would never be there when I needed them.

    But that ended up just not being the case. I have the friends I have today because we’ve shown each other over the years that we’re always here for one another.

    And it wasn’t just our shared queerness that brought us together: These are the people I turned to when I was boiling over with self-hatred. My friends understood me because we were dealing with the same kind of negative feelings. We all hated ourselves in some way, and it was easy to sit in that together.

    My mom, though, could never understand why I felt the way I did, and it was difficult to find the words to make my thoughts make sense. She would say things like “Happiness is a choice,” but I could never understand why she thought I would choose this.

    Looking back, I was definitely depressed, and I don’t believe my mother understood how serious my feelings were. But at that time, speaking to her about any of that seemed almost impossible. Reaching out to her for help felt like blasts of judgment every time. Our conversations left me feeling frustrated and isolated.

    I realize now that a lot of the reason I even made it through my high school years is that my friends and I were all depressed together. We were all trying to find small ways to make it through each day and support each other. We talked about how we purposefully looked forward to seeing each other or reading the next chapters in our favorite books.

    I was able to see these kinds of adult bonds through rainbow-colored glasses, and questioning that one type of relationship bled into questioning them all.

    As I’ve gotten older and more secure in my pansexual identity, I’ve been able to reach out to my family just to talk. I realize now that we don’t have to have deep, soul-searching conversations about my life if I don’t want to. No one is entitled to my story except me. But I will say that taking the small steps to initiate the conversation has allowed me to build new relationships with my family on my own terms while still keeping the close bonds I formed in college as my primary emotional connections.

    What I am saying is we can all choose the kind of relationships we have with others. Coming out as a part of the LGBTQ+ community meant that I wasn’t limited to having friendships with other women. I was able to see these kinds of adult bonds through rainbow-colored glasses, and questioning that one type of relationship bled into questioning them all.

    Family is more than just what blood runs through our veins. A family can be chosen. You can actively choose to put people in high regard and keep them the closest to you.

    I’m not sure when this thought process began or when it ended, but being a relationship anarchist has—just like being a member of the LGBTQ+ community—meant that I’m leaving expectations and generalizations behind in favor of creating a new narrative for myself that’s completely my own. I can shape it how I want, and I refuse to feel bad about removing people from my space who don’t serve my needs and wants.

    It’s important to mention that the fact that I can actively choose which relationships are most important to me is a privilege. Other people in the community aren’t that lucky. So many are thrown out of their homes, live in areas that are unsafe for them to be themselves, or have countless other barriers that prevent them from being around others that will accept them. For those people, keeping the bonds you have, sometimes regardless of how fulfilling they are, is all you have. Relationship anarchy alone won’t solve these systemic issues.

    But just remember: At the end of the day, you have the power. Not every physical space can be safe, but our chosen relationships can be. Wherever you can, find a community that will accept you and understands you for who you are. You don’t owe your story to anyone, and this should be one aspect of your life where you feel empowered to take control and set the terms.

    Complete Article HERE!

    Yes, You’re ‘Queer Enough’

    — So Call or Label Yourself Whatever Feels Right

    by Gabrielle Kassel

    This article is for anyone who’s ever asked themselves “Am I queer?” or “Am I queer enough?”

    (Spoiler alert: The answer to the first Q = the answer to the second Q).

    Here we go!

    Typically an umbrella term, “queer” is an identifier that means outside the norm of society, explains Eva Bloom, a queer peer sexuality educator, sex science communicator, and creator of F*ck the Patriarchy, F*ck Yourself, a shame-busting program for non-men.

    The so-called norms of society that they’re referring to are cisgender, allosexual, and heterosexual.

    “If you’re anywhere outside those identifiers — even a little bit! — you can be queer,” they say.

    Sometimes people who are “not straight” or “not cisgender” or “not allosexual” might identify “just” as queer.

    And sometimes they may layer “queer” alongside another identity. For example, someone might be a queer bisexual dyke, or a queer trans man, or a queer biromantic asexual.

    “Historically, ‘queer’ was used as a slur against the queer community,” says Rae McDaniel, a licensed clinical counselor and gender and sex therapist based in Chicago.

    Starting in the 18th century, the word started to get slung at people assumed to be “homosexual” or “engaging in homosexual activity.” Folk who fell outside the acceptable versions of “man” and “woman” also fell victim to the word.

    However, in the late 1980s/early 1990s, LGBTQ+ communities began to reclaim the term both as a personal identifier (“I am queer”) and as a field of study (queer theory), says McDaniel.

    What fueled this reclamation? Mainly, anger. During the AIDS epidemic, LGBTQ+ communities were (rightfully!) pissed at the lack of response (or compassion!) from doctors, politicians, and unaffected citizens.

    Out of spite and in power, LGBTQ+ people began using the word as both an identity and a rallying cry. “We’re here, we’re queer, we will not live in fear,” for example, became a common march chant.

    “For some people, especially those alive at a time when queer was used exclusively as a slur, queer is still a dirty word,” says McDaniel.

    As such, you should never call someone queer unless that’s a word they would use to refer to themselves.

    Due to its history as a slur, many (queer) people see it as having political power.

    “For many, identifying as queer is a way of saying ‘I resist cis-hetero patriarchal society that stuffs people into tiny cisgender, heterosexual boxes,’” says McDaniel. For these folks, queerness is about trying to disrupt the people, systems, and institutions that disadvantage minorities.

    For them, “queerness is about freedom to be yourself while also working towards others’ freedom as well,” they say.

    For the record, you don’t have to be queer to be invested in actively disrupting systems of oppression!

    Straight, cisgender, allosexual individuals can and should be doing this activist work, too.

    That’s a question only you can answer!

    If you answer yes to one or more of the following questions, you may be queer:

    • Does the term “queer” elicit feelings of excitement, euphoria, delight, comfort, or joy?
    • Does it give a sense of belonging or community?
    • Does the fluidity of queerness feel freeing?
    • Does your gender exist outside of society’s understanding of acceptable manhood or womanhood?
    • Is your sexuality something other than straight?
    • Do you experience sexual attraction somewhere on the asexual spectrum?

    Remember: “You don’t need to have gone through a physical transition, have a particular kind of gender expression, or even have a queer dating or sexual history in order to claim the label,” says Casey Tanner, a queer licensed clinical counselor, certified sex therapist, and expert for pleasure product company LELO.

    “It refers to a sense of self, rather than any behavior or appearance,” adds Tanner.

    If you’re queer, you’re queer enough. Full stop.

    Unfortunately, many people who want to identify as queer worry that they’re somehow not adequately queer or queer enough to take on the term for themselves. (Tanner says this is known as “queer imposter syndrome.”)

    Bloom notes this is an especially common phenomenon among bi+ women and femmes — especially those who have a history of dating men or are currently in a relationship with a nonqueer man.

    “Often, the question of ‘Am I queer enough?’ is the result of internalized biphobia and femme-phobia,” she says. Blergh.

    While this feeling of inadequacy is common, they say, “You don’t have to worry, sweetie, if you’re queer, you’re queer enough.”

    That stands if:

    • You’re in a so-called “straight passing” relationship, aka a relationship others assume to be heterosexual.
    • Nobody knows you’re queer but you.
    • You’re a new member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
    • You’re not physically “clockable” or identifiable as queer.
    • You don’t have any queer friends.
    • You have no sexual or dating history.
    • Your sexual and dating history doesn’t “confirm” your queerness.

    PSA: Your current relationship doesn’t dictate whether you’re queer

    “People who’re in straight appearing relationships but identify as queer often feel like they aren’t queer or aren’t queer enough because their queer identities aren’t always visible at first glance,” says McDaniel.

    But this doesn’t change the fact that they’re queer!

    Self-identification — *not* your relationship status (or dating and sexual history) — is what determines whether someone is queer.

    No doubt, there’s tremendous privilege that accompanies “passing” as straight (aka not being publicly identifiable as queer).

    But, “on the flip side, queer (and bi+) invisibility is associated with increased depression and anxiety and decreased access to affirming healthcare,” says Tanner.

    Why? “We all crave being seen and accepted for who we are, and if we aren’t seen, we aren’t accepted,” she says.

    Further, not feeling queer enough to enter queer spaces isolates people from the opportunity to make queer friends and join a queer community, says McDaniel.

    “And connection to community is an important part of resiliency,” explains McDaniel. “So not feeling able to enter, welcomed by, or seen as queer by the people in your life can have profound impacts on mental health, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.”

    The short answer: Connect to the queer community. These avenues can all help.

    Read queer books

    “Consuming a wide variety of queer stories is an excellent way to normalize queerness for yourself, and even see yourself in the pages,” says Bloom.

    Queer memoirs in particular can be powerful for identification. For example:

    Watch queer movies and TV shows

    “If you’re constantly consuming cisgender and or straight images and media, it becomes easy to forget to affirm the queer part of you,” says McDaniel.

    On top of that, it can expedite feelings of inadequacy and otherness.

    Listen to queer podcasts

    From raunchy to educational, there are queer podcasts for every queer listener’s taste.

    Trust, you’ll like all the below!

    Follow queer people on Instagram

    “Filling your feed with people who are unapologetic in their queerness, can both normalize queerness while validating your own queerness and identity,” says Bloom.

    Following people who show off their queer joy, in particular, can be pretty damn invigorating, she says.

    Get on TikTok, and maybe even participate

    One of the great things about TikTok is how excellent the algorithm is at showing you the content you want to see.

    To get on queer TikTok, mass-follow a bunch of the suggested accounts that pop up after following your fave queer comedian, celeb, sex educator, podcaster, or influencer. Then, enjoy falling down the rabbit hole of your now very queer For You feed.

    “When you feel comfortable, you might participate in one of the TikTok sound overlays that applies to you,” says Bloom. “This may help other queer people find you, which may lead to friendships or community.”

    Attend a queer event online

    Thanks to the pandemic, there continue to be all sorts of online queer dance parties, matchmaking games, book readings, and performances, says Bloom.

    “For some queer people, these online events feel less intimidating than in-person events because you can leave when you want, keep your camera off, and stay anonymous if you choose,” they say.

    If that’s you, she says, “Attend, attend, attend!”

    Keep hunting for community until you find one that affirms you

    It’s important to remember that the queer community isn’t a monolith.

    So, if you attend an event and don’t find queer people who affirm your queerness, keep looking, suggests McDaniel.

    “I guarantee there are people out there in the world who will believe and affirm your queerness just because you tell them who you are,” they say. “And when you find them, it can be incredibly affirming and euphoric.”

    Identity gatekeeping, which is the act of trying to limit access to who can use an identifier, happens with most gender and sexual identities. And every (!) single (!) time (!) it’s not only disgusting but potentially life endangering.

    “Telling queer people that they aren’t queer enough or that they shouldn’t have access to the queer community is no small potatoes,” says Bloom. “It can be detrimental to someone’s mental health.

    So, if you’re reading this and you’re being an identity gatekeeper, cut it out.

    There are times that queer imposter syndrome and gatekeepers may make you feel otherwise, but if you’re queer, you ARE queer enough.

    Queer is queer is queer is queer enough. We promise.

    Complete Article HERE!

    Pride 2021

    Happy Gay Pride Month!

    gay-pride.jpg

    It’s time, once again, to post my annual pride posting.

    In my lifetime I’ve witnessed a most remarkable change in societal attitudes toward those of us on the sexual fringe. One only needs to go back 50 years in time. I was 17 years old then and I knew I was queer. When I looked out on the world around me this is what I saw. Homosexuality was deemed a mental disorder by the nation’s psychiatric authorities, and gay sex was a crime in every state but Illinois. Federal workers could be fired merely for being gay.

    Today, gays and trans folks serve openly in the military, work as TV news anchors and federal judges, win elections as big-city mayors and members of Congress. Popular TV shows have gay and trans protagonists.

    Six years ago this month, a Supreme Court ruling lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage throughout the whole country.

    The transition over five decades has been far from smooth — replete with bitter protests, anti-gay violence, backlashes that inflicted many political setbacks, and AIDS. Unlike the civil rights movement and the women’s liberation movement, the campaign for gay rights unfolded without household-name leaders.

    And yet some still experience a backlash in the dominant culture. I don’t relish the idea, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. And while we endure this be reminded that it won’t smart nearly as much if we know our history. And we should also remember the immortal words of Martin Luther King, Jr. “The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.”

    In honor of gay pride month, a little sex history lesson — The Stonewall Riots

    The confrontations between demonstrators and police at The Stonewall Inn, a mafia owned bar in Greenwich Village NYC over the weekend of June 27-29, 1969 are usually cited as the beginning of the modern Lesbian/Gay liberation Movement. What might have been just another routine police raid onstonewall.jpg a bar patronized by homosexuals became the pivotal event that sparked the entire modern gay rights movement.

    The Stonewall riots are now the stuff of myth. Many of the most commonly held beliefs are probably untrue. But here’s what we know for sure.

    • In 1969, it was illegal to operate any business catering to homosexuals in New York City — as it still is today in many places in the world. The standard procedure was for New York City’s finest to raid these establishments on a regular basis. They’d arrest a few of the most obvious ‘types’ harass the others and shake down the owners for money, then they’d let the bar open as usual by the next day.
    • Myth has it that the majority of the patrons at the Stonewall Inn were black and Hispanic drag queens. Actually, most of the patrons were probably young, college-age white guys lookin for a thrill and an evening out of the closet, along with the usual cadre of drag queens and hustlers. It was reasonably safe to socialize at the Stonewall Inn for them, because when it was raided the drag queens and bull-dykes were far more likely to be arrested then they were.
    • After midnight June 27-28, 1969, the New York Tactical Police Force called a raid on The Stonewall Inn at 55 Christopher Street in NYC. Many of the patrons who escaped the raid stood around to witness the police herding the “usual suspects” into the waiting paddywagons. There had recently been several scuffles where similar groups of people resisted arrest in both Los Angeles and New York.
    • Stonewall was unique because it was the first time gay people, as a group, realized that what threatened drag queens and bull-dykes threatened them all.
    • Many of the onlookers who took on the police that night weren’t even homosexual. Greenwich Village was home to many left-leaning young people who had cut their political teeth in the civil rights, anti-war and women’s lib movements.
    • As people tied to stop the arrests, the mêlée erupted. The police barricaded themselves inside the bar. The crowd outside attempted to burn it down. Eventually, police reinforcements arrived to disperse the crowd. But this just shattered the protesters into smaller groups that continued to mill around the streets of the village.
    • A larger crowd assembled outside the Stonewall the following night. This time young gay men and women came to protest the raids that were commonplace in the city. They held hands, kissed and formed a mock chorus line singing; “We are the Stonewall Girls/We wear our hair in curls/We have no underwear/We show our pubic hair.” Don’t ‘cha just love it?
    • Police successfully dispersed this group without incident. But the print media picked up the story. Articles appeared in the NY Post, Daily News and The Village Voice. Theses helped galvanize the community to rally and fight back.
    • Within a few days, representatives of the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis (two of the country’s first homophile rights groups) organized the city’s first ever “Gay Power” rally in Washington Square. Some give hundred protesters showed up; many of them gay and lesbians.

    stonewall02.jpgThe riots led to calls for homosexual liberation. Fliers appeared with the message: “Do you think homosexuals are revolting? You bet your sweet ass we are!” And the rest, boys and girls, is as they say is history.

    During the first year after Stonewall, a whole new generation of organizations emerged, many identifying themselves for the first time as “Gay.” This not only denoted sexual orientation, but a radical way to self-identify with a growing sense of open political activism. Older, more staid homophile groups soon began to make way for the more militant groups like the Gay Liberation Front.

    The vast majority of these new activists were under thirty; dr dick’s generation, don’t cha know. We were new to political organizing and didn’t know that this was as ground-breaking as it was. Many groups formed on colleges campuses and in big cities around the world.

    By the following summer, 1970, groups in at least eight American cities staged simultaneous events commemorating the Stonewall riots on the last Sunday in June. The events varied from a highly political march of three to five thousand in New York to a parade with floats for 1200 in Los Angeles. Seven thousand showed up in San Francisco.

    What does it mean to be Queer?

    Definition and history explained

    The word ‘queer’ can represent an orientation, a community, a form of activism – and often, all three.

    By

    Over the last few decades, the word ‘queer’ has been reclaimed as an expression of empowerment by a large part of the LGBTQ+ community. For people who exist outside the gender or sexual norm, it can represent an orientation, a community, a form of activism – and often, all three.

    Unlike labels such as ‘lesbian‘ or ‘non-binary’, which focus on a single aspect of someone’s identity – sexuality or gender, respectively – the term ‘queer’ encompasses both. However, since the term means different things to different people, its definition transcends any meaning that is pinned to it.

    We spoke to Dr Kate Tomas, a spiritual empowerment mentor for women and non-binary people, Philip Baldwin, an LGBTQ rights activist, and Liz Edman, leading LGBTQ+ theologian and author of Queer Virtue, about what ‘queer’ means today:

    What does queer mean?

    Queer is predominantly used as an umbrella term to describe sexual orientations and gender identities other than heterosexual and cisgender (people whose gender identity and expression matches the sex they were assigned at birth). For people across the LGBTQ+ spectrum, the word ‘queer’ can also convey a sense of community, acceptance, kinship, and represent a revolutionary, political rejection of heteronormativity.

    ‘Queer can be used in a range of contexts by LGBTQ+ people,’ Baldwin explains. ‘It can be used by people who want to reject specific labels of romantic orientation, sexual orientation and/or gender identity. It can also be used by people who want to challenge perceived norms of the LGBTQ+ community – for example, seeking to reject racism, sizeism or ableism.’

    Queerness can convey a sense of community, acceptance, kinship, and represents a revolutionary rejection of heteronormativity.

    Up until very recently, the word ‘queer’ was exclusively a homophobic slur. ‘It was first reclaimed in the late 1980s,’ says Balwin. ‘A younger generation of LGBTQ+ people now increasingly use the term. It can be empowering – some LGBTQ+ people associate the word with a sense of community and acceptance.’ Not everyone feels this way, he adds, so it’s important to listen to LGBTQ+ people and find out how they identify.

    Not only is the word ‘queer’ interpreted in different ways by different people, but it can mean many different things to an individual, too. As an author, says Edman, ‘One of the first questions people always ask me is ‘how do you use the word ‘queer’? The word ‘queer’ means two things to me. It is an umbrella term comprising various iterations of Queer sexual identity and experience.

    ‘Basically, it’s a neat and nifty way to communicate what is otherwise an increasingly cumbersome list of initials that begin LGBTQIA,’ she says. ‘I like ‘queer’ in this sense because it can hold identities and preferences that are being felt and named now and into the future.’ In addition, Edman’s work ‘draws on the academic discipline of Queer Theory, where “to queer” is to rupture false binaries – or put another way, to disrupt rigid, black and white thinking.’


    Is ‘queer’ an insult?

    ‘The label “queer”, when used by people hostile to difference, is a slur,’ says Dr Tomas. ‘All slurs act in the same way: it is a way of labelling someone as sub-human, indicating to the world that they do not deserve to be treated with humanity or respect. Sometimes the most powerful way to fight back from such an act of violent labelling is to reclaim the term itself.’

    Using the label is a choice that can only be made by the individual. ‘One can self-identify as Queer, but it is not appropriate to label others as Queer because of the history of the word,’ Dr Tomas explains. ‘So, if you know your friend identified as Queer you can talk about your queer friend – but if you think someone is gay, it is not appropriate to refer to them as queer.’

    The history of the word ‘queer’

    The word “queer” hasn’t always related to sexuality and gender. When it entered the English language in the 16th century, queer was a synonym for strange, odd and eccentric. ‘It wasn’t until the 1940s that the term was used a slur against gay people, or anyone who wasn’t gender-conforming,’ says Dr Tomas. ‘To be labelled as “a queer” was extremely dangerous, and would often result in violence, abuse and sometimes death.

    Three decades ago, Queer – with capitalisation to denote a proper noun – was reclaimed, Dr Tomas continues. ‘Reclaiming words that have been used as slurs and weaponised against oppressed communities is a form of resistance,’ she explains. ‘There is power in taking back a term used to shame, humiliate and violate, but that reclamation can only be done by members of that oppressed and marginalised group.’


    How to be more inclusive of Queer people

    It’s easy to make the world a more welcoming, safe space for Queer people. Here’s some pointers on being more inclusive that are actionable right now:

    🌈 Don’t miss the ‘Q’ in LGBTQ: Whenever you talk about sexual orientation and gender identity, make sure you include the word queer.

    🌈 Increase your understanding: Do your own research. ‘Listen to LGBTQ+ people, learn about LGBTQ+ identities and challenge homophobia, biphobia and transphobia whenever you hear it,’ says Baldwin.

    🌈 Don’t make assumptions: Open your mind to the possibility that any person you ever meet might identify as Queer. Avoid drawing conclusions based on your perceptions of who they are.

    🌈 Share your pronouns: ‘Making a point of sharing your own pronouns – “Hi, I am Kate, I use She and Her pronouns” – and not assuming any one else’s are two powerful and impactful ways to make Queer people safe and welcomed,’ says Dr Tomas.

    🌈 Ditch dualisms: Make an effort to use non-gendered language whenever you can, like ‘people’ instead of ‘men and women’ and ‘children’ instead of ‘boys and girls’.

    🌈 Fly the flag: Quite literally, if you can. ‘Displaying the rainbow flag in your businesses will instantly let Queer people know you are safe for them,’ says Dr Tomas.


    What is Queer Theory?

    Queer Theory (QT) explores and challenges the various ways society perpetuates gender-, sex-, and sexuality-based binaries, such as feminine/masculine, man/woman, and heterosexual/homosexual. These binaries reinforce the notion of the minority as abnormal and inferior, Encyclopaedia Britannica writes, ‘for example, homosexual desire as inferior to heterosexual desire, acts of femininity as inferior to acts of masculinity.’

    ‘Thus,’ the text continues, ‘Queer Theory is a call to transgress conventional understandings of gender and sexuality and to disrupt the boundary that separates heterosexuality from homosexuality. Instead, Queer Theorists argue that the heterosexual-homosexual division must be challenged to open space for the multiple identities, embodiments, and discourses that fall outside assumed binaries.’

    In essence, Queer Theory focuses on dismantling oppressive cultural norms. ‘Whether or not you are considered to be “a man” or “a woman” directly impacts how much power you have access to, how much respect you are given, and therefore how safe you are in the world,’ says Dr Tomas. ‘If you happen to not confirm to either of these options for gender presentation, or you are neither a man or a woman, the world is not a safe place.’

    Complete Article HERE!

    Feminism’s legacy sees college women embracing more diverse sexuality

    By , , and

    Most adults identify themselves as heterosexual, meaning they report being attracted to, and engaging in sex with, only members of the other sex. However, women ages 18 to 29 are increasingly rejecting exclusive heterosexuality and describing their sexual orientation in other ways. These changes in women’s sexuality are not mirrored by their male peers.

    That’s the primary finding in our most recent report on nine years of surveys at the Binghamton Human Sexualities Research Lab, just published in “Sexuality in Emerging Adulthood.” Together with our Binghamton University colleagues Richard E. Mattson, Melissa Hardesty, Ann Merriwether and Maggie M. Parker, we conclude that changes in young adults’ sexual orientation are not just as a result of increased social acceptance of LGBT people – but also are related to feminism and the women’s movement.

    LGBT progress

    These findings align with recent polling by the Gallup Organization, which found that American adults are increasingly identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or more than one of those. The Gallup report attributed these changes to increasing public awareness and acceptance of people who identify as LGBT, as well as the influence of a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. Another potential factor was proposed federal legislation banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.

    But our study goes beyond those poll results, showing that young American adults are shifting away from heterosexuality not just in how they identify themselves when asked about their identities, but also how they describe whom they are attracted to and with whom they have sex. That indicates something more is happening than an increasing willingness to “come out” and identify as LGBT.

    The fact that these differences are larger among women than men indicates, we believe, that feminism and the women’s movement have, in fact, begun to change female sex and gender roles.

    Compulsory heterosexuality

    In the early 1980s, lesbian feminist Adrienne Rich argued that what she called “compulsory heterosexuality” was the primary cause of gender inequality. She said that because social pressures and threats of violence – as well as actual violence – force heterosexuality on women, that made women dependent on and subservient to men in all areas of life, including gender roles and sexual expression.

    Our research indicates that one outcome of more than a century of feminist activism and progress may be women’s increasing resistance to compulsory heterosexuality and its consequences. As a result, more women under 30 are moving away from exclusive heterosexuality than men in the same age group.

    In a related development, we found that women in this age group are also reporting more open attitudes toward sex than previous generations of women. They are separating sex from traditional love relationships, describing themselves as enjoying casual sex with different partners and more likely to have sex with a person before being sure the relationship would become serious or long term. These attitudes are more akin to those of their male peers.

    The shift is more pronounced among women who are moving away from exclusive heterosexuality, and less obvious among women who report they are exclusively heterosexual.

    There’s much more to learn

    We still have a lot of questions about these trends. We wonder how they affect the ways that these young adults engage in sex and relationships. We also don’t know how women who identify themselves as not exclusively heterosexual negotiate and navigate sexual relationships with men – or whether these trends will continue as they age.

    We are also interested in why men in this age group are less likely than women to reject exclusive heterosexuality – but are more likely to report exclusive homosexuality. And we’d like to know whether, or at what point, those who are not exclusively heterosexual might come out to family and friends – and if they deal with things like anti-LGBT prejudice.

    As human sexuality becomes increasingly diverse, it remains unclear whether the political and social landscape will affirm these changes or threaten those who are expressing that diversity. We are hopeful that the continued success of the LGBT and feminist movements will push society toward an affirming future.

    Complete Article HERE!