Jeliza Patterson

5,051 notes

queermuseum: Queer African American Women and the History of Marriage  This photo and headline accompanied an article from the October 15, 1970 issue of Jet magazine. They reveal that long before the recent struggle for marriage equality began,  African American women who love women have engaged with the institution of marriage and have fought to make it their own. Edna Knowles, on the left, and Peaches Stevens were wed in Liz’s Mark III Lounge, a gay bar on the South Side of Chicago, “before a host of friends and well wishers.” The article ended by noting, “although the duo has a type of ‘marriage license’ in their possession, the state’s official marriage license bureau reported it had no record of their license.” This ending serves to remind Jet readers that Knowles and Stevens’ union was not legitimate in the eyes of the state, as does the use of quotes around the word “married” in the headline. However, decades prior to this bold public display of queer affection, African American female couples in New York strategized alternative ways to obtain marriage licenses in the 1920s and 30s: “Marriage ceremonies were held with large wedding parties which included several bridesmaids, attendants, and other wedding party members. Actual marriage licenses were obtained by either masculinizing the first name, or having a gay male surrogate obtain the license for the marrying couple. These marriage licenses were placed on file with the New York City Marriage Bureau.” - Luvenia Pinson, “The Black Lesbian: Times Past-Time Present,” Womanews, May 1980  p. 8. Also during the 1930s, popular performer Gladys Bentley was making a living singing bawdy tunes and playing piano late into the night at various clubs all over New York, including one named after her. Bentley married her white girlfriend in Atlantic City in a ceremony to which she invited friends in the entertainment industry: “Columnist Louis Sobol remembered Bentley coming over to his table one night and whispering, ‘I’m getting married tomorrow and you’re invited.’ When Sobol asked who the lucky man was to be, she giggled and replied, ‘Man? Why boy you’re crazy. I’m marryin’ ——’ and she named another woman singer.” - Eric Garber, “Gladys Bentley: The Bulldagger Who Sang the Blues,” Out/Look, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 1988, pp. 52-61. These examples show some of the various ways queer African American women have created public rituals to express their relationships and have therefore insisted on their rights to full citizenship, many decades prior to the current struggle for marriage equality.  - Cookie  

queermuseum:

Queer African American Women and the History of Marriage 

This photo and headline accompanied an article from the October 15, 1970 issue of Jet magazine. They reveal that long before the recent struggle for marriage equality began,  African American women who love women have engaged with the institution of marriage and have fought to make it their own.

Edna Knowles, on the left, and Peaches Stevens were wed in Liz’s Mark III Lounge, a gay bar on the South Side of Chicago, “before a host of friends and well wishers.” The article ended by noting, “although the duo has a type of ‘marriage license’ in their possession, the state’s official marriage license bureau reported it had no record of their license.” This ending serves to remind Jet readers that Knowles and Stevens’ union was not legitimate in the eyes of the state, as does the use of quotes around the word “married” in the headline.

However, decades prior to this bold public display of queer affection, African American female couples in New York strategized alternative ways to obtain marriage licenses in the 1920s and 30s:

“Marriage ceremonies were held with large wedding parties which included several bridesmaids, attendants, and other wedding party members. Actual marriage licenses were obtained by either masculinizing the first name, or having a gay male surrogate obtain the license for the marrying couple. These marriage licenses were placed on file with the New York City Marriage Bureau.” - Luvenia Pinson, “The Black Lesbian: Times Past-Time Present,” Womanews, May 1980  p. 8.

Also during the 1930s, popular performer Gladys Bentley was making a living singing bawdy tunes and playing piano late into the night at various clubs all over New York, including one named after her.

Gladys Bentley

Bentley married her white girlfriend in Atlantic City in a ceremony to which she invited friends in the entertainment industry:

“Columnist Louis Sobol remembered Bentley coming over to his table one night and whispering, ‘I’m getting married tomorrow and you’re invited.’ When Sobol asked who the lucky man was to be, she giggled and replied, ‘Man? Why boy you’re crazy. I’m marryin’ ——’ and she named another woman singer.” - Eric Garber, “Gladys Bentley: The Bulldagger Who Sang the Blues,” Out/Look, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 1988, pp. 52-61.

These examples show some of the various ways queer African American women have created public rituals to express their relationships and have therefore insisted on their rights to full citizenship, many decades prior to the current struggle for marriage equality. 
- Cookie

 

28 notes

Consent: a lesson plan idea for young children

vixyish:

The news lately has got me thinking— I’m sure you can figure out the context here— about the call for teaching consent in sex education in schools. Teaching kids not to rape, instead of just teaching potential victims how to avoid rape.

I think it’s an excellent idea to cover the topic of consent during sex ed classes. Here’s a White House petition, if you’re interested. But I had a thought. Why do we have to wait until then? And why does it have to be limited to being part of sex education, since not all schools teach sex ed?

For one thing, this is a concept that much younger kids can understand, and for another, consent applies to more situations than sex. Also, kids sometimes have a tendency to get squirrelly or embarrassed or distracted— “OMG we’re talking about SEX right here in SCHOOL!!!”— and kind of shut off listening. And there will always be the usual parental “OMG YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT SEX RIGHT THERE IN SCHOOL!!!” objections.

So anyway, I’ve had a lesson plan kicking around in my head for a while, and I thought I’d try to write it out. It’s been over ten years since I last taught a class, but I’ve taught 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. I had this in mind for early elementary age kids, but I believe this lesson can be adapted to any age.

This is pretty rough, but I wanted to put it out there.  Please feel free to use it and share it if you think it’s a good idea.

 

Read More

24,218 notes

therhumboogie:

By Catherine Nelson, I find myself mesmerised by these astounding, meticulous compositions from thousands of tiny details, congregated to form these individual little magical worlds. Each one a contained planet with it’s own individual environment and colour range. 

273 notes

arsvitaest: “Waves in Moonlight” Author: Yokoyama Taikan (Japanese, 1868-1958)Date: ca. 1904Medium: Ink and color on silkLocation: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

arsvitaest:

“Waves in Moonlight”

Author: Yokoyama Taikan (Japanese, 1868-1958)
Date: ca. 1904
Medium: Ink and color on silk
Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

20,774 notes

hirotohk:

cauda-pavonis:

This legit makes me want to cry because I have *never* seen a picture of an older trans man naked.  It’s always young guys, usually much younger than me.  It’s like we don’t have a future, an adulthood, a middle age, an old age.  It’s like we just stop.

As a trans man who’s well past the age (and transition status) of ~sexxay tranz boiz~, pictures like this give me some kind of hope.  We’re not just one image stuck in time, snapshot of a skinny white andro urban-queer young trans dude with perfect top surgery scars, poster boys for young radical queerdom.  We’re not all Youth.  We live in more than two dimensions, and one of them is time.

Older queers tend to fall off the map full stop.  Trans people, even more so.  But we don’t disappear once we stop being, basically, fashionable. Supporting our young people is important, but we need to show them we have a future, too.

I literally cannot envision my own future.  There are no images of older men like me.

One image obviously can’t address all the lacks in representation, much less one image of a hot skinny (apparently?) white man.  But just to have that one extra factor in there, of age, it’s - it’s important. 

More, please.

Great commentary above.
Side commentary - what a silver fox. oooooooooi

(Source: unicornboyz, via cyborgcap)

Filed under trans nude Tattoos figure photography

5,214 notes

neil-gaiman:

I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase “In these days of political correctness…” talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, “That’s not actually anything to do with ‘political correctness’. That’s just treating other people with respect.”

Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile. 

You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening.

I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!”

Happy Valentine’s Day.

1,018 notes

But the problem with readers, the idea we’re given of reading is that the model of a reader is the person watching a film, or watching television. So the greatest principle is, “I should sit here and I should be entertained.” And the more classical model, which has been completely taken away, is the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician who sits at the piano, has a piece of music, which is the work, made by somebody they don’t know, who they probably couldn’t comprehend entirely, and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift that you give the artist and that the artist gives you. That’s the incredibly unfashionable idea of reading. And yet when you practice reading, and you work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it. It’s an old moral, but it’s completely true.
Zadie Smith (via lyras)

(via suricattus)

7,942 notes

fluffyshenanigans:

princesssteve:

gallifrey-feels:

lostinthethreads:

thebrothersjack:

FINALLY. Someone actually explored my sexuality in a reasonable, psychological way! GROWL YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I HAVE NEEDED THIS.

They is a good way to explain bisexuality. Finally.

The ‘nonexistent’ bit. Fucking. THANK.

Literally the best description of pansexuality. It’s especially import to me that the word capable is used there. I am capable of being attracted to all genders. Capable. Not automaticly.

YES EXACTLY THIS

These are mostly very cool. But I have to say, did that definition of bisexuality come from actual identifying-as-bi people? Because it is bizarre.

I’m a bi woman, I have been an out bi woman for over 20 years, and most of my social circle identify as bisexual (and many are not cis), and have for decades, and if you told any of us that is what the definition of bisexuality was we would, on a good day, laugh in your face.

Bisexual is of born of the set with homo- and hetero-. As in, instead of “same” or “other”, there is same *and* other. Which works perfectly well if, for example, the bi person in question is genderqueer. Or the person they are interested in is somewhere other than classic man/woman.  Bisexual didn’t stop meaning that just because a new generation came along that thought “pansexual” and “omnisexual” were cooler words — and I’m not saying those words are bad, and I see why people like them, but just because you like pansexual as an easier shorthand for referencing a more spectrum-y notion of gender doesn’t mean you get to redefine my identity.

Now you kids get off my lawn. But nice job with the cards, though, really.

(Source: , via rumshop)