Queer Your Library

Reminder to request queer books from your libraries!

And hey.

Check them out.

Libraries have limited shelf space. If the books don't get checked out or don't get checked out often enough, the can be 'weeded' as unnecessary.

Borrow books you've already read. Put them on the reshelve cart to show in library use. Ask the librarians if they can recommend something else 'like this.'

Every librarian I have ever met is willing to march into hell with a baseball bat and a smile that could cut steel to defend their patrons right to access info. But you make that INFINITELY easier for them if they have numbers.

If they can say, wow, this section has a lot of turnover, we can fight to keep it in the budget. This program got a turnout, we need more like it. This display keeps getting emptied, it needs to be expanded.

Give them the tools to fight with. Use your library. Support your library. Join the Friends, attend events, suggest events, ask for books, use Hoopla and Libby and Canva and everything they're spending their budget on. Go to the book sale, go to the website, go to town/city meeting if you have that ability.

Be a patron. The books you request could save someone you may never meet.

Whenever a new banned book list comes around, I add all the books to my hold list for my library. That way the library will either order the book or put in a loan request from a neighboring library that already has it.

I admit rarely read them all simply because many are not to my taste as I'm extremely narrow in my reading. But I always keep a book for a few days before returning it, and then request a new one from the list.

I can't fork over the money to purchase these books myself, but I can ensure they get checked out in our library system and give them a better chance of staying on the shelves longer.

And if there is an LGBTQIA book I desperately want and no library in our system has it, I'll purchase it. I've got a good relationship with the circulation librarian in my town and if I ship the book directly to her, she'll add it to their system, and I'll just check it out. This is a win-win for both of us. She gets a new book at no cost to the library and I get to read a book I really want but don't have room for at home.

Also, I recommend using Libby, Hoopla, or whatever Ebook system your library has. The more it gets used, the more money they are allocated to support it in the future.

And that goes for all Library services. The more traffic a service gets, the more money they are allocated for it in the future.

If you don't know what your library offers, go inside and ask. Every librarian I've ever met loves to help and answer questions. And some libraries have the coolest and most esoteric things on offer.

So try to support all the services your library has to offer!

Happy Pride! 💖🧡💛💚💙💜

Contemplating crimes….

Mama, leaving her tail draped enticingly: kid, how am I supposed to teach you to pounce if you just keep staring at my tail? COMMIT THE CRIME, CHILD!

i don't know if accidentally giving your cat a wig when you cuddle them is a plus side or down side of having long hair

Isn't it funny when

Woah

Hey

Did you see that? What the fuck.

I'm gonna start saying "especially non binary ppl" when talking about trans issues. Trans people are really struggling, especially non binary ppl, because we're treated like jokes and freaks in our own communities.

I'm kind of sick and tired of things being "especially" about everyone else but us

Non binary people are treated like the scapegoats of the trans community, everything is our fault. We're too loud, to assertive, too annoying, too cringe. Too out there, we are visibly trans a lot of the time, and that pisses people the fuck off because we like it and it's a part of our gender identity and expression. We are just as oppressed and face just as much violence as everyone else

#passing refers to making our transness invisible

I am NOT letting you leave this in the tags prev it is so true. Non binary people cant pass because there is no way to pass for us. Passing as ANY GENDER is getting misgendered because it means others assuming we're binary people, and we're not.

One of the first feelings of dysphoria I got was the feeling of "everyone else will perceive me as a binary gender first and there is nothing I can do about it" and I wanted to stop existing at all, to stop having a body and stop being perceived so no one would dictate my identity for me.

Non binary people arent taken seriously on our own oppression, in talking about trans issues we're an afterthought, because if they cant categorize us then they refuse to talk about us. Binary people, cis and trans, get annoyed when we add onto a conversation with our non binary perspective, when we ask to be included in their talks about trans liberation and fighting against gender essentialism. We complain too much and we're too weird and too cringe, we cant use terms like transfem and transmasc without everyone assuming we're basically binary trans people, and binary trans people are so busy pitting transfem and transmasc as opposites while also saying "oh but we include non binary people!" No you dont, your inclusion is only for monogender enben whose gender is static and aligned with the binary. Because talking about only the existance of transfem and transmasc as two opposite exclusive sides is exorsexist as hell.

And dont get me started on how we dont fucking have LANGUAGE, there are so many languages that have no pronouns or neutral words to refer to people, existing in your native country means being misgendered.

We're either misgendered and invisible or misgendered and hypervisible. And people love to either act like we dont exist, or like we're basically binary cis or trans so there's no need to put effort in accounting for us.

It's literally horrific. If you're binary, at the very least there is language for you, and others to understand who you are.

I think "passing as making transness invisible" is a really good redefining of the term. That definition also allows us to talk about how even trans people who can easily be read as cis may not pass if they are openly trans or were well known (locally or more broadly) before transitioning.

And that understanding for me, stems from the reality that a major way many nonbinary people do not pass is pronouns. The minute you declare yourself nonbinary or adopt any pronoun other than he OR she, you have made yourself socially visible as trans. A 2024 study found that having they/them pronouns on a resume meant it was rejected more than not only the same resume without pronouns, but the same resume with binary pronouns. The author estimated that "74% of the discrimination faced by applicants who disclose “they/them” pronouns is rooted in their nonbinary gender identity rather than the political and other signals associated with the act of pronoun disclosure."

Without understanding this, a lot of nonbinary people are assumed to be functionally cis and move through the world as cis-passing people do, when that is often noy true—being misgendered is not the same thing as passing, but for nonbinary people, it is assumed explicitly or implicitly that if we are not gendered correctly, if we are not seen as our nonbinary genders, it must mean that we are treated as cis women and cis men and thus do not truly understand transphobia.

*not counting people you knew irl first. use your discretion for other edge cases

burn it 🔥

(he/him) 🐇

said this on bluesky but:

i genuinely encourage non black people to engage with this, who might be worried they can't because of the word "nigga" because they feel like it's overstepping. the only way it would be overstepping is saying it to me when ur not black, but please don't be afraid to engage with black art.

i kinda get annoyed when non black people police other non blacks on how to engage with black culture because it creates a problem where non black people avoid us all together which can be extremely isolating and create even MORE tension and overall being uneducated.

such an honor to talk to my bud JUSTIN PEARSON from THE LOCUST and DEAD CROSS on his CULT & CULTURE podcast about loudly proving love in a punk rock way. OUT NOW. there is whole article about the pod here

Queer history includes porn.

Queer pornographers, queer sex workers, queer collectors, and queer pornography enjoyers, are a part of queer history. Archiving queer history includes protecting porn. You cannot separate the history of queerness from pornography, stop trying.

Sputnik 2, launched on November 3, 1957, carried the dog Laika, the first living creature to be shot into space and orbit Earth. Laika was a stray dog found on the streets of Moscow. There were no plans to return her to Earth, and she lived only a few hours in orbit. …

taken from @gallivantsofgillis on tiktok

Can I just add: that beautiful art of Laika (6th image, with her nose pointed to the sky) is by Dappermouth (Jenna Barton). It’s such a beautiful piece and I hate to see it un/mis-credited.

All the gold for Laika.

At the risk of sounding stupid, I just found out how long the stone age lasted. In my head it's about as long as other historical time periods, a couple thousand years before ancient egypt, and conceptually looks like a bad car insurance commercial. Nope! Dead wrong! The stone age lasted for 3.4 MILLION YEARS.

Okay wow i would not have guessed millions. Maybe in like the tens of thousands? But definitely would have way undershot.

I told my wife and they said "Yeah, modernity is a recent and strange invention"

Oh yes! Hello I am wife. And these are the oldowan tools:

The first image is my favorite, the iconic oldowan hand axe, but you'll note there's a wide range of other tools crafted for everything from crushing nuts and stones, to awls and engraving devices. There is some evidence, albeit hotly debated, that these tools MIGHT have been used in ancient burials. Maybe. This is up for debate because these tools are THREE MILLION YEARS OLD. They pre date homo sapiens and homo erectus. They pre date the ice age. Hell, they pre date the fucking ice caps. We don't think humans were burying their dead as we understand it today, but maybe?? These were made by homo habilis, or the "handyman", so named for their invention of tools.

It makes me feel very small to look at these, like looking up at a starry sky.

You ever see something innocuous, minding its own business on the clearance shelf at Michael’s and before you know it, it takes over your life for a few weeks?

So it was with this desktop greenhouse.

I took it home and after taking an appropriate time to “season” my idea in my mind (read: a month or two) I set to make my vision of a mini botanical garden a reality.

I started by removing the heavy glass panels and building a raised floor above the latch. I wanted to use the base as a foundation on the building.

I wrapped the foundation in plastic stone textured flooring (meant for Christmas villages) and built a pond at one end of the same. I then gave it a more realistic paint job and designed a rough layout for my plants and displays.

I also knew I wanted to make the ironwork significantly more intricate, but I wasn’t sure how just yet…

Up next - PLANTS! I went wild making all kinds of plants. Some were specific species and some were more conceptual.

I made several trees with polymer clay and moss, cacti out of beads and flocking, cattails out of raffia, hot glue and coffee grounds, and giant monstera leaves out of paper and wire.

This part should have taken me a long time, but it really came together fast. I loved finding ways to replicate natural shapes and patterns using bits of this and that.

I did make adjustments to my plans as I went like eliminating benches in favor of a simpler overall design.

Then I needed to fill my pond with water. For this I used resin. Lily pads were added to the top layer, and I wired in simple LED fairy lights. The batteries are kept in the box under the foundation.

In a weekend frenzy I added more plants, metal (paper) steps, new (plexi)glass windows, a roof, wrought-iron vines (paper again), doors that open, and a hose reel disguising the latch. Suddenly, a project I thought would take months was finished…

I love my desktop botanical garden. Right now it sits on a simple lazy Susan in my office. But I’d love to get it a proper display box to protect from dust.

Thank you for coming on this little journey with me. This piece packs a lot of joy into a tiny space. I always love building miniatures, and I’ll be doing more in the future I’m sure.

Hey.

Don't post online about what protests you plan to attend.

Be safe. Be smart. Don't fall for the weird pressure to liveblog political actions when we live in a surveillance state.

And for fuck's sake, stop posting unredacted pictures of people at protests. It's not a fucking party. It's a political action and you could get someone killed. I have a personal friend who was doxxed and harassed for MONTHS in 2020 after their photo at a protest got passed around by neonazis. Do not be a part of that happening to someone.