Gay Ghetto Comics 1: Constructing a Dominant Gay Habitus.

Sender draws on Bourdieu’s concept of the “habitus”, which describes how tastes shape the relationship between the body and its symbolic and material contexts; “Habitus embodies the lived conditions within which social practices, hierarchies, and forms of identification are manifested through an individual’s choices, but signals that those choices are already predisposed by an existing social position” (2004: 14).

Sender argues that the most visible and socially sanctioned gay collectivity is not particularly diverse in terms of race, class, and to some extent gender: “This constituency is identified in part by its participation in a dominant gay habitus” (p. 15). The identities and practices associated with a dominant gay habitus are displayed “in bars, music clubs, parties or on the street” (Fenster: 1993, 76-77). They are also represented in cultural products such as magazines, advertisements, films – and comics.

In his essay on queer punk fanzines, Mark Fenster (1993) argues that dominant positions within gay communities tend to be held by “middle class adult homosexuals who are more assimilated within dominant economic and social structures”, and who are thereby better equipped to represent themselves and to circulate those representations through various forms of commercial media (p. 76-77).

The gay habitus constructed through marketing and in gay publications serves to make visible such gay and lesbian individuals – that is, those who are already otherwise empowered. Sender argues that gay marketing practices focus on members of a dominant gay habitus, obscuring the less “respectable” – and therefore less marketable – members of the LGBT communities, including people of colour and poor and working-class queers.

Via delux_vivens.

So law doesn't protect queer POC from having their experiences appropriated by white straight privileged people, but IT CAN protect said white privileged people from... POC people who talk about the assholes "intellectual property" that came from appropriation and lies.

The Amina Hoaxer threatened to sue Minal Hajratwala for sharing his "copyrighted material" about "Amina."

(ADVERTENCIA POR TRIGGER. Obviamente instar a la violación es algo que el tipo considera totalmente admirable.)



Asqueroso, y lamentable.

Via the_future_modernes, some amazing shit: Sex positivity and other lies on Tumblr.

But there was this lie in the whole thing, and the lie was told by blog after blog, webpage after webpage that talked a great game about how we can be open about sex, but seemed to equate sex with the nude bodies of thin, conventionally attractive, blonde white women in male-gaze centric pornography, as though if I really pushed myself to enjoy such titles as Biker Bitches 5 and clinically lit photoshoots of a woman with her legs in improbably acrobatic positions, I’d be making the world a better place. Because that’s what the world needed, more people to applaud the open display of sculpted bodies as though somehow, that would liberate my fat, pansexual ass from the confines of sexual oppression. As though the ways in which society has pushed at me and pushed at me, telling me to keep my fat ass covered and my queer thoughts to myself is the same as what society tells a 5’8, 110 lbs, straight, white woman with no disabilities. Because it isn’t.

[...]

I looked and looked in those sex positivity blogs and sites, in their pictures and stories and I didn’t find a lot of fat people (male or female), people of color, queer people. I have yet to find a mainstream sex positivity site (yes, this movement has a mainstream) that features transgendered people in all their beauty. Forget seeing disabled people displaying their various modes of sexuality. Forget seeing their bodies displayed as revolutionary and world-changing and an example of how sex is really, really awesome.

I learned soon enough that most sex positivity is actually White Straight Thin Able Cisgendered Cissexual Positivity.

And the world is already positive enough on those traits, thank you very much.

[...]

I’m tired of the lies.

If you’re sex positive and you’re not making an active effort to include and celebrate all kinds of sexuality from all kinds of people? You’re a fucking liar. There it is. You’re a liar.

Because sex positivity and body positivity and anti-racism and fat acceptance and the disability movement and queer positivity and womanism are part of the same thing.

Same with any movement. Fat acceptance? If you’re only showing fat white people or fat able people or fat straight people, then you’re not fat accepting, you’re just white supremacy enforcing and trying to bring chubby people under that umbrella of dominance.

I’m tired of the people who put up some Tumblr blogs and showcase the same old, same old and act like they’re part of a revolution. They’re not. They’re part of making sure that lots of other people know exactly who’s sex is celebrated and who’s isn’t.

So I say FUCK sex positivity. I want sex inclusivity.

Preach it.

Muchísimas gracias a Mako por pasarme estos links:

Entre Argentina y Uruguay hay un proyecto para tener una Ley de Identidad de Género para personas trans.

"Las personas trans sufrimos la discriminación por nuestra identidad de género casi desde que tenemos uso de razón. Muchas de nosotras fuimos echadas de nuestra casa, rechazadas por nuestra propia familia. La mayoría de nosotras no pudo terminar la escuela, no por falta de voluntad, sino porque el sistema educativo nos expulsa por ser diferentes. Incluso quienes la terminamos nos cansamos de buscar y buscar trabajo, de sentir cómo nos cierran la puerta en la cara. La mayoría de nosotras no tenemos ni siquiera un documento que diga nuestro nombre, y tenemos que soportar que algunos medios se refieran a nosotras como 'los' travestis", decía hace unos meses en una declaración pública la Asociación de Travestis, Transexuales y Transgénero Argenitnas (ATTTA), una red nacional con filiales en todo el país que integra la Federación Argentina LGBT.

[...]

"No tener un DNI significa para nosotras la negación del derecho básico a la identidad. Además del daño moral que esto ocasiona, nos impide muchas veces acceder al sistema de salud, nos expulsa del sistema educativo, nos impide conseguir trabajo o tener aportes jubilatorios u obra social, firmar contratos... hasta para votar tenemos que hacerlo en la fila de varones. En muchas provincias la policía nos detiene, nos encarcela y nos mata. Para las personas trans, la democracia todavía no llegó. Vivimos como en la dictadura, bajo la sistemática violación de nuestros derechos humanos", sostuvo Marcela Romero, coordinadora nacional de ATTTA y vicepresidenta de la Federación.

Algo que los movimientos LGBTA (que suelen estar liderados por personas cis) olvidan es que el matrimonio para todas las personas es importante, pero no es tan vital como que las personas tenga una calidad de vida digna, y aunque una ley como está no evitará todo el peligro que corren las personas transexuales, puede impedir un importante número de muertes.

Y este video subtitulado al español sobre lo que es género en realidad, muy educativo y útil para explicar a personas ignorantes del tema, que tristemente es la mayoría debido a que nuestra cultura nos sume en un modelo cis-sexista y heterosexista de sociedad:

Gender Identity Project Subtitulado from Sebs Trivino on Vimeo.

Muchísimas gracias a Mako por informarme:

Tras un histórico debate, el Senado transformó en ley el matrimonio homosexual.

Y acá Mako tiene un post sobre el tema, y los pormenores de la decisión: ¡Todas las personas pueden Casarse!

Argentina Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Via Kynn: Glee wins GLAAD award when it fails epically with its transmisogyny. And the comments at ONTD feminism brings the derailment to the house.

--

I'm in a Reborn's mood thanks to the latest chapter (I'm easy, okay) and was about to make icons of these. But then I liked them too much in this size I guess.

So have some Suzuki Adelheid's coloring, soon to be icons maybe:

( Cut for your convenience )

Porque Mako me alegra el día encontrando estas cosas que ni yo sabía que existían:

SOMOS GAY. Ñande Joja ha Rory.

SOMOSGAY, inicia su trabajo como una asociación solidaria comprometida con la innovación de estrategias efectivas contra la homofobia; la mejora de la prevención del VIH y el sida; la defensa de los derechos de las personas afectadas por este virus y el avance de los derechos humanos en el Paraguay.

Reconocemos a nuestra lengua guaraní como la principal herencia cultural de nuestra nación, expresamos nuestra visión en la frase en guaraní ÑANDE JOJA HA RORY , (traducido SOMOS IGUALES Y FELICES). Como organización nos reconocemos herederos de la nación guaraní, marcada por su lucha contra la opresión, la desigualdad, la violencia y reivindicamos nuestro andar hacia el Yvy Marane’y (la Tierra sin Mal) de nuestros ancestros, una sociedad en donde podamos vivir todos los paraguayos y paraguayas sin exclusiones y con dignidad.

Y acá, en "Buen Día Paraguay" de PARAVISIÓN:





Estas cosas me alegran la semana.

I just found this via the_future_modernes:

Reactions to Ricky Martin coming out.

And the amazing (and most popular current Puerto Rican artist) René Pérez Joglar, also known as Calle 13’s “El Residente” who Tweeted “Ricky Martin: Being a man doesn’t have to do with your sexual preference, but with the honesty with which you sustain your words” and “Ricky Martin is much more of a man than many a man who says they are a man.”

Okay, yeah, I know, honesty = masculinity (we all know that femininity = cowardice), and "a man who says they are a man" is... a straight man? But still. There is also so many negative conceptions (a lot of them to do with race and class) about Reggaeton. And believe me, there is a lot of shit going on there, but not that different from other music genres. Here is the thing about Latin America: the "good music" for the whiter, richer people is always the white western music (a lot of it in English). Which just has the same shit that most music around here.

René Pérez Joglar, "El Residente" de Calle 13, sobre Ricky Martin:

@ricky_martin ser hombre no tiene que ver con tu preferencia sexual si no con la honestidad con la que sostienes tu palabra.

Sé que el tipo habla de masculinidad y ser hombre como si fuese equivalente a honestidad, y todos sabemos lo que "femineidad" quiere decir. Y un "hombre que dice ser hombre" es... un hombre que dice ser hetero? Pero bueno, hay demasiados conceptos negativos sobre Reggaeton, muchos de los cuales salen de ideas racistas y clasistas. Claro, hay mucha mierda en el Reggaeton, pero hay la misma cantidad de mierda en la mayoría de los géneros musicales que son comercializados por estos lares. Y el asunto de Latinoamérica es que la "buena música" para la gente de clase alta es siempre la música de Europa o USA, de gente blanca que canta en inglés que tiene la misma mierda que en cualquier parte.

(Tangential, but reading that article, seriously? I so didn't know "homosexual" has negative connotations in English. Now I know it and won't use it in English. But okay, blame people who translated that, not Ricky Martin since he said it in Spanish, and get over yourself.)

ETA: Para agregar, y el porqué yo hice está entrada: hasta la música más mierda, sin contenido e insultante en inglés que es importada por acá está relacionada con una mejor clase, un mejor status (que está ligado con los círculos "progresistas" de estos lares, la ironía, lo sé) y no tiene las connotaciones de "peor, clase baja, delincuencia" que tiene género como Reggaeton, tropical, y música latina. Eso es todo.

ETA 2: daniela_lynx linkea sobre el asqueroso racismo y otras cosas de Calle 13:

"Yo me llevo a la chinita con to' y sombrilla
La monto en la carretilla
Y la llevo a pasear por encima de los bonsái
Después paramos en Shangai a comer chicken-patai
(Estúpilo, eso es tailandés!)
No importa si es tailandés, chino o japonés
To's son iguales, to's hablan alrevés
To's son iguales, todos hablan enreda'o
Con los ojos achina'o y comen senta'o
Sin zapatos se sientan a comer asopao de gato
Y si no hay gato en el plato pues comen pincho 'e perro
(La carne de pelo tiene mucho-mucho hielo!)
¿Mucho hierro? (Mucho hielo!)

El tipo sigue siendo un cerdo. Para sorpresa de nadie.

And ETA 3: Something I was thinking about is that I took away Ricky Martin's great moment (because it was, specially for Latin American queers, because he is a Mega Star here), and talked about Calle 13 guy. Granted, I wanted to do the post about music in LA since a long time ago, but I should have looked who this guy was.

So meanwhile, let's talk about Ricky Martin. He came out, and even if it's something very personal, definitely not something he should have done, but something he chose to do; it even inspired people who are inside a very homophobic medium, like Reggaetoners, to go and congratulate him.

Coming out while being a public figure shouldn't be something that deserved congratulations. But in our homophobic society, it sure is.

Lady GaGa Talks About Queer Themes in “Telephone” Video

GaGa said of the video which, as we all know by now, features trans prison guards and a hot homo kiss: “There are transsexual women and transgender women and suddenly it becomes poisonous and something else because there are some people in this world that believe being gay is a choice. It’s not a choice, we’re born this way.”

Discuss. What do you all think? I'm off now. I swear.

Y para sorpresa de nadie, declararon nulo el matrimonio entre dos hombres que iba a ocurrir mañana en Argentina.

Se lleva a discusión.

ETA: Acá un link muy interesante sobre la ilegalidad del nuevo fallo.

Gracias a Mako por ambos links!