LGBTQ+

There are certain things you can Google. For everything else, there's MasterCard.

I have to open that way because this all feels ... surreal. The first time we talked, she wanted me to snuff her, and now she wants to be my slave and financially support me (and has already sent money).

I know this is not a BDSM community, and that's all I'll say on this front, but she's late-20s, pre-op and seemingly enamoured of the fact that I see her as a woman. Texting with her, as we started, she seemed totally passable ... we hit a giant fucking speedbump when she sent art of random chicks, and I had a come-to-Jesus moment after the reveal after being gangraped in college and faced with cock again.

It was not the easiest 24 hours I've had.

Net result, we're out the other end, and since she's at the start of her journey, she wants me to give her a name.

There is some ... not irony, but ... one of my first memories is of watching The Neverending Story on a TV wheeled into a ski lodge so the kids could watch while the parents drank. I'm not going to provide a synopsis here, but the elder son of my second ex wife (always a phrase you want to be able to use) was Atreau.

The thrust of the movie at large is giving a name to a new girl. There are some twists and turns.

And so here I return to this well. I fucking hope Amanda was a good choice. She just felt that way.

So, I have a mass in like 6 months. Is family bs that I can't avoid.

I will need a formalish outfit but I'm not exactly fond of wearing a suit, even a fem one.

Any ideas? I'm not exactly skinny :c

I remember when I first figured out I was bisexual. It was pretty cut and dry

oh wait no it wasn't; that's just how I like to remember it.

I'm getting similar messy vibes around nonbinaryness now and then. Everyone is kinda nonbinary, right?

A great video about how cis people should stop playing trans characters especially if the actor is the gender they are transitioning from not to.

2024, however, did not come without hope and progress despite its political turmoil. Moving towards the direction of LGBTQ rights, Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a “gay/trans panic defense” law, prohibiting courts from allowing this defense in homicide cases. With this, Michigan became the 20th state to enact a law of this kind.

Trans activists made their voices known following a bathroom sit-in demonstration protesting U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, who proposed H.Res 1579 on Nov. 18. The resolution would prohibit House members, officers and employees of the House from using single-sex facilities other than those “corresponding to their biological sex,” ultimately banning transgender people from using restrooms in the House. The demonstration made waves following the arrest of 15 participants of the sit-in who demanded justice.

Additionally, states across the country are enacting “shield” or “refuge” laws, to ensure protection and safety for those crossing state lines to receive gender-affirming care, declaring themselves safe haven states.

With 2025 making its turn around the corner, five trans and nonbinary leaders share with Reckon their wishes for the year ahead.

Archived link

The website of online retailer Shein has been banned by a decision of the Central District Court of Tula. The authorities interpreted rainbow-colored bracelets offered at the marketplace as LGBTQ+ symbols. The court's decision was reported by the independent publication Verstka.

According to the court ruling, the ban was requested by the Tula branch of state-run consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor. It states that agency officials were “monitoring online resources” that sell LGBT symbols and found such merchandise on the Shein website.

Specifically, officials found rainbow-colored bracelets on the Shein website by searching for “LGBT bracelet.” The court ruling points out that such goods are available for order by customers of all ages, including minors.

[...]

Joy can be a fleeting emotion. Perhaps for this reason I’ve relished the opportunity to capture moments of Black joy—Black trans joy, Black queer joy—through my drawing project Activist Portrait Series. I’ve been able to draw, larger than life, moments of belly laughter, of teeth exposed, torsos bent in wriggling joy. I’ve been thinking a lot about joy this year—as we have witnessed a rising tide of right-wing backlash to any wins we have had since the uprisings of 2020 around racial justice and queer justice. How do we hold on to joy in moments when lawmakers, judges and those who uphold the laws, and everyday citizens who push for such legislation, seem hell-bent on our despair and disappearance? To better understand the role of joy in these moments of strife and unrest, I turned, as I always do, to Black queer and trans artists to help me make sense of the now.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/51625630

This article appeared in my mind as I woke up

What set Dragon Age II apart from its competition was abundance. If you wanted to pursue a queer relationship, you had exactly the same number of potential companions as someone looking to pursue a straight relationship. And these relationships would be as deeply drawn and as beautifully animated as the straight ones.

I found this game mechanic, now dubbed “playersexuality,” liberating. In other video games, my favourite characters were often locked away from me by my choice of gender. If I wanted to, say, pursue Tali’Zorah in Mass Effect, I had to start the game over as a male protagonist. No such calculations were necessary in Dragon Age II. And it wasn’t just the freedom I appreciated: as a recently out bisexual, I was also smitten with a game that let me play the hero alongside a group of queer, pan and bisexual characters.

Since Dragon Age II, more and more games use a playersexual approach to romance, from indie games like Stardew Valley (2016) and Boyfriend Dungeon (2021), to big-budget role-playing games like Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023). The fourth installment in the Dragon Age series, The Veilguard (2024), has also re-embraced playersexuality, with all seven of the companions available for a player character to pursue.

But while playersexuality attracted me to the Dragon Age franchise, it has also been a lightning rod for very disparate groups of gamers. Conservative players, for example, argued that the LGBTQ2S+ relationships in Baldur’s Gate 3 were shoehorned in to “satisfy diversity quotas.” Players of Dragon Age II complained that the companion Anders would always flirt with Hawke (male or female), which made it impossible to avoid queer content; they derided the all-bisexual cast as unrealistic, and as abandoning Bioware’s “main demographic” (straight male gamers).

Thomas Necchi takes on Burroughs, addiction, and the "Ugly Spirit" that animates his work.

Transgender dancer Jin Xing’s ascent to the upper echelons of Chinese show business is extraordinary in a nation where it has become increasingly difficult for LGBTQ+ people to live openly.

The 57-year-old has been a transgender icon in China for years, admired by some of the country’s most marginalized as a rare example of both success and acceptance, even within officialdom.

But a recent series of sudden and unexplained cancelations by local authorities of appearances by her dance troupe has sparked fears Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s authoritarian drive is ensnaring the country’s most prominent openly transgender personality.

Transgender people in China often face social stigma and institutional discrimination, facing issues in looking for work or simply walking down the street without being stared at.

[...]

The social media phenomenon Murat Övüç, who attracted attention with the videos he published on Instagram, has been detained on charges of insulting religious values. The detained Murat Övüç is being taken to Vatan Police Headquarters.

Social media phenomenon Murat Övüç has been detained. The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has launched an investigation into the famous phenomenon Murat Övüç.

According to Ekol TV, Murat Övüç was detained on charges of insulting religious values.

Murat Övüç had recently shared a video on his social media account in which he was traveling wearing a turban.

Title really says it all, warning for mentions of 'crossdressing' etc and disliking labels.

Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/post/23801022

Russia fined at least seven people for “looking too gay” after a police raid on a nightclub in Tula in February which videos show was carried out by men in military-style uniforms and helmets.

It comes as the Kremlin ramps up a push to promote “traditional values” that has included tightening anti-LGBT legislation and banning “propaganda promoting a child-free lifestyle”.

One man had “crosses of black tape glued to his nipples” and a “women’s style corset” on his “naked” body.

Another had “pink socks … an unbuttoned kimono over his shoulders, his hair dyed bright orange, and red tattoos on his face”.

“Although a man, he was wearing a short top covering his chest, black leather shorts above the knee, on which there were several chain-shaped ornaments, and fishnet tights,” read another description.

“The appearance of the detainees is inconsistent with the image of a man of traditional sexual orientation,” judges were reported to have said.

Not that there's anything good about this, but hearing that both Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins "resigned" from whatever honorary positions they had with the FFRF rather made my heart sink.

I was a linguistics student for a time, and Pinker's books always had a sociolinguistic aspect to them, but I never saw transphobia. It was admittedly a while back, so it really wasn't yet settling into the national consciousness.

I also admired Dawkins' writing style; again, I saw nothing transphobic.

So for both of these guys to be like "nope, you should have totally kept a piece up that says transwomen should have fewer rights and options" is, maybe, the final insult of 2024.

Honestly it's not that I don't have irl friends, there are people I'm good with and can be with them, but I just more prefer to watch movies and talk to my friends online (all of you). 💜 Love you gays wherever and whoever you are and wish you happy and successful 2025! Hope all your wishes come true! 💜 Stay strong as you are!

In Texas, where dozens of proposals attacking transgender people have already been pitched for the coming year, a hopeful sign has emerged nonetheless: The west Texas city of Odessa, notorious for adopting one of the most extreme anti-trans bathroom measures in the country, has now declared the ordinance unenforceable, a step taken after voters ousted the council members and mayor who had pushed it through.

The city’s bathroom ban came into full effect this fall, calling for “bounties” on supposed offenders and creating a right for private citizens to file suit against them.

Just weeks later, though, Odessa voters sent the mayor and three council members to defeat. The new mayor, Cal Hendrick, and the new council members, Craig Stoker, Eddie Mitchell, and Steve Thompson, have promised to revisit the ordinance in full.

Based in San Antonio, Holley serves as the executive director of Thrive Youth Center, a nonprofit organization working to provide homeless queer, trans and nonbinary youth with a safe and supportive environment. While being queer was never going to be an issue on surface level, Holley tells Reckon that this internal battle he dealt with regarding his sexuality led him to substance abuse—a point of connection he makes with the youth he sees at the center.

“My parents loved me, yet I didn’t feel loved enough. And although it’s not necessarily the reality of what was there, it was [still] my reality,” he said, explaining the profound significance of giving people a safe space. “If we can create that environment to individuals that have already gone through trauma, they can get back on track in their early teens and 20s instead of having to wait when they’re much older to deal with those issues.”

He recalls a particular story from last year, when a 19-year-old trans girl briefly stayed at Haven For Hope, another homeless shelter in San Antonio. Thrive Youth Center enrolled the teen—who had dropped out of school in seventh grade—into their own program. Within three months of staying with Thrive Youth Center, she earned her high school diploma. Today, she is in college.