Hello from the Lambda Literary Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, where I am currently a writer in residence! I love being surrounded by brilliant gay writers!!!!!!!!
Queer as in F*ck You
Them launched a new series called TransGenerational: Trans Lives Across Time, and it includes seven interviews with trans elders. One of the interviews is with actor Lea Robinson, who plays the beloved Uncle Bertie in A League of Their Own: “Beyond Anything I Could Imagine:” Lea Robinson on the Joy of Bringing Black Trans Lives to the Small Screen. “I know there are elders in my life who have been there and done it. I thought of myself in the middle ground, but Bertie’s definitely an elder,” Lea tells Them. “Bertie has paved the way, someone who has knowledge and love to give. And now I feel a responsibility to keep that way paved, whatever that looks like.” I love this quote from the interview as well:
“I’m very proud to be a trans person — to be all of my intersecting identities, my race and gender being a few of them. I’m proud to get up, to be visible, to be vocal. It’s powerful. It hasn’t always been that way. There’s been fear. When I was much younger, there was some shame and confusion. I didn’t have the resources around me. I didn’t know anyone who looked like me or sounded like me or lived like me. But that’s where I am now, and I’m very grateful for that.”
Two Texas School Teachers Were Fired After Attending a Drag Show.
‘Lesbians Did Not Exist’: Growing Up Gay in Russia.
LGBTQ Asylum Seekers Fleeing Violence in Africa Are Sleeping on Canada’s Streets.
I know the word “included” is used in this headline, but make no mistake: This decision does not directly confront the fact that trans athletes are being excluded from major sporting events. Creating a new category of competition is NOT it! But to catch up on the latest decision by a major sports governing body, read: Trans Swimmers to Be Included in an ‘Open Category’ at Competitions, World Aquatics Says.
Credit Hurdles for Transgender and Nonbinary People Could Be Cleared Under Proposed Bill.
A chat on anti-gay violence in 1990s NYC, true crime, and the docuseries Last Call: ‘We Can Choose to Not Create More Damage’.
How Many Margaritas Does It Take to Write a Queer-Affirming Bop?
For Years, the FBI Investigated Manhattan Project Workers for Being Lesbians. I gotta say, I didn’t expect there to be a lesbian angle to Oppenheimer, but here we are.
Saw This, Thought of You
The Future of Design Is Designing for Disability.
And more reading on disability (in)justice: Senator Duckworth Took Her Daughters to See ‘Barbie.’ Because She Uses a Wheelchair, She Had to Wait Outside.
Learn more about long COVID: Fatigue Can Shatter a Person.
Hollywood’s Fight Against A.I. Will Affect Us All.
Political Snacks
Voting Rights Are Still Under Assault. Sen. Raphael Warnock Has a New Plan to Protect Them.
One More Thing
And now, a poem.
I love that damn Margarita song. Anytime I even hear the word “Margarita” it starts playing in my head.
Lea Robinson was my queer group’s staff advisor in college– we were so, so lucky
I wish someone was writing about how the men who created the atomic bomb that killed hundreds of thousands of people used the language about parenthood / life creation for their bomb, such as
– “Congratulations to the new parents. Can hardly wait to see the new arrival”
– “Oppenheimer’s baby” (the atomic bomb)
– “Teller’s baby” (the hydrogen bomb. Those who wanted to DOWNPLAY his role said that he was the baby’s mother, not the father)
– “The baby is expected on such and such a day”
– “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” for the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki
– “Doctor has just returned most enthusiastic and confident that the little boy is as husky as his big brother…”
– Also conflating sex and death when building weapons (“losing virginity,” “penetrator”)
– Also all the religious metaphors about creation, trinity, nuclear priesthood…
This is a paper by Carol Cohn who learned about the language male scientists used for weaponry. It is from 1987, therefore not new, but the feminist angle is certainly missing from “Oppenheimer” and I wish all of this was more addressed right now. And I wish I could read a newer version of this from scientists today who build weapons that can destroy the world and what kind of language they recently use(d).
https://genderandsecurity.org/sites/default/files/carol_cohn_sex_and_death_in_the_world_of_rational_defense_intellectuals.pdf
If I was a journalist or if I had a blog, I would write about this now, since the movie “Oppenheimer” is so widely watched and the topic as *finally* grabbed people’s attention. And If I was on social media, I would share it like hell.
Of course when Cohn writes about the male scientist’s fantasy of male pregnancy while creating the atomic bomb, it is with the notion that men can’t get pregnant, and she only considers cisgender men. But still. The article is so important.