Queer Talk - Part One

Part One in a short little series of conversations with my parents about dealing with LGBT family issues.

HAM BISCUITS

Which must be Southerner Closet-Speak for some deviant sexual act. Word, yo.

DADT Repeal - And So It Continues....

Gender-F**K

So, Thanksgiving night at my friend's house, and as the night goes on and we all get more and more inebriated it turns into Dress-Up Time with a side order of the macabre. The Grand Guignol merging of sex and death and gender-norms that typifies Williamsburg-ian art.

I posted the photo online, and within hours had message after message, comment after comment, all digging it. Which, frankly, surprised me. Messages from strangers, especially. Dudes I don't even know, most comments being on how "Hot" the pic is. I'm just stunned. Guys tend to be such conformists when it comes to how gender is represented, and yet I've literally had dozens of messages in the last few hours from guys who have a hard-on for this photo.

Something to think about.

Colds: The One Thing Everyone Loves To Share

The Importance of Being Allies - How Supportive are Your Supporters?

The above photo greeted me this morning when I signed onto Facebook. It's my sister and my brother-in-law; shirts they ordered from stonewall.org.uk. Wonderful, eh? And powerful.

All-too-often I hear members of the community saying that they don't need to "proclaim" their orientation or "wear or on their sleeve" or "be defined by it", which (to me) sounds more like cowardly gay-apologist nonsense that anything else. Look, the reality is this: anti-gay bigots sure love to scream from the rooftops how much they hate gay people. And as America refuses to pass hate-speech legislation, we cannot shut them up. What we can do is raise our voices to match theirs, and be just as vocal, just as visible, and combat their shouted lies with truth and love.

And so, these thoughts came to mind....

What's Next For Andrew Shirvell?

Well....is he? Of course he is. Family can always spot Family. But the biggest indicator is simply this: the "I totally hate gay people!" thing is pretty much the go-to disguise for closeted homosexuals.

Mark Foley. Ted Haggard. Larry Craig. Bob Allen. Glenn Murphy Jr. Ken Mehlman. Charlie Crist (wait for it..it's gonna happen). George Rekers. Rick Scott (wait for it..it's gonna happen). Jim Kolbe. Richard Curtis. Bob Bauman. pathetic theatre-queen Justin Caster. J.Roy Ashburn. Edward L. Schrock. David Dreier. Jim West. G. Harold Carswell. Roy Cohn.

Andrew Shirvell takes his place among the sorry list of homosexuals who were not merely closeted, but virulently anti-gay until...well...until the Good Ship Karma paid them all a visit.

Poor thing(s).... *le sighhhhh*

Shirvell had boasted, previously, about how "everyone supported him" in what he was doing. The problem, however, with living in an insular world where everyone reflects bigotry back at each other is that one becomes out of touch with...well...everyone else.

Shirvell, of course, is a homosexual. I say "homosexual" and not "gay man" because you're born a homosexual - you have to EARN being gay, by Coming Out and embracing who you are. You have to claim it and you have to own it. It is not handed to you.

So, what now?
Shirvell has been fired from his job as assistant A.G. Good.
Chris Armstrong will flourish. Young, bright, Out, strong? He's gonna do just fine.

Shirvell? No way he's going to live this down and find solid employment, and who does he have to turn to? A bigoted family he's spent his life trying to convince that he's not gay by being a big ol' anti-gay bigot.

One day, he will be Outed. And after we (secretly, and some not-so-secretly) take pleasure in it (because, hey, karma is real...) we can encourage him to do the right thing: become an Advocate for equality, by sharing his story of how self-hate and religious bigotry turned him into a man hell-bent on attacking others to distract the people who were supposed to love him from the truth about Who (and what) he is....which is a closeted homosexual.

Here's hoping that one day Shirvell finds the strength to be a Gay Man.

Gender-Nonconformity

I remain, more and more, awed and humbled by my transgendered friends. It's hard enough being gay in this patriarchal culture of hetero-normative lies and bullshit, where gender-nonconformists are often the target of very insecure, angry and unintelligent people, but to be transgender is something that the world needs to catch up on understanding. There are, of course, more than two genders. There are at least six. I have many trans friends, and am continually inspired by their remarkable resilience in life.

Admitting to being gay is so difficult for some people, especially males, that they have to condition their "acceptance" of self by reinforcing that they're "still a real dude, and not one of those stereotypical flamers or somthing..." Ugh. What bullshit, eh?

So, you're gay, but you're still a 'real man', eh? Good think you're only gay. You wouldn't have the strength of character it takes to be openly transgendered.

It is Living Out Loud, indeed. Defying gender-norms, externalizing your internal self, and having the courage to *change* your gender in the eyes of a confused world that all too often chooses to react with anger and hate at anything that confuses them.

My brothers and sisters, I fucking adore all that you are and I will always have your back.

Oh! And here's a pic of my awesome parents with Buck Angel, because they're all totally fucking awesome.

Two videoclips I wanted to share. Buck Angel (*swooooon*) who is the hottest freakin dude ever, and who happens to have been born into a female body. Angel ROCKS. Take everything you thought you knew about what it means to be a man or a woman, coat it lube, and FUCK it.

OH, and this piece of genius writing.....the performances of which cut my soul apart, and then stitched it back together with their strength. I'm in awe.

:-)

Love, Little Kiwi

Purple Power

So, yesterday we all wore purple. Well, not all. A lot. And that's still pretty rad. NYC was awash in shades of purple, and I was rather moved by that. Not just showing solidarity in the wake of the recent LGBT youth suicides, and the violence, but as a show against the anti-gay bigotry that still plagues this country, and indeed this world culture. When there is anti-gay discrimination sanctioned by the government and written into law, what message is that sending to gay youth and the non-gay youths who BULLY them?

So, The Color Purple. All day. The looks of recognition and love exchanged by those who were sporting the color yesterday were lovely. It was like not feeling alone, in a city full of strangers.

And then, to top it all off, the sunset over Manhattan was purple itself. Rainbow shades of indigo and violet. No joke. I attached a photo, the view from my bedroom balcony (unedited!) to show ya. Neat-o, eh?

Why Are Bigots Obsessed With Sex?

It's just ridiculous. The obsession that the anti-gay crowd has with, specifically, male anal sex. It's like they're all the mother from Stephen King's "Carrie", utterly obsessed with the thing(s) they claim to loathe. And it's almost exclusively focused on male-male anal sex, not lesbian sex (because anti-gay males only hate lesbians unless it's two smokin'-hot babes getting it on for the sexual gratification of straight males...), and not oral sex. I dunno, do they have an explanation for why oral sex is ok, and holy, when performed by heterosexual couples? What about straight couples that have anal sex? When I say "I'm gay", I'm fully aware that some people instantly think "Butt Sex". I don't actually care, but many do, and I know that many parents don't want people to know that their child is gay because they don't want people to think that their son takes it up the ass. But why are they even thinking about it? Do they think, of their straight sons and daughters, "Oh, my daughter has a girlfriend! There are penises inside her!" "Aw, that's my son. He pounds pussy. YAY!"

Why? Ewwww! You don't think (I hope...) about your straight children, or neighbours, or friends, having sex. Why do people insist on thinking about what (they think) gay people are doing in bed?

Patriarchal nonsense. Gender non-conformity. A re-imagining of male and female roles and what they mean. It's such fucking nonsense.

Solidarity - Visibility - Coming Out Day

Every day, showing people that you care about Equality. Just a thought ;-)

It Gets Better, BD says so. And I'm his friend. So there.

Shitting on the First Amendment! The Musical

Success! After massive public pressure that these idiots shouldn't have been surprised by, Shirvell has been suspended from his job. Firing soon to follow. And he seemed so boastful to me, and so self-righteous on CNN, eh?

Aw, Mary. ;-)

So, the investigation into Shirvell begins. His computers should be seized and their contents examined. I think we all know what those harddrives are going to contain....

And, in advance, let me just say right now that NO, none of it was for "research purposes"...

Oh Andrew Shirvell....it seems that you never learned that resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die?

Do YOU Find This Funny?

I was having a moody night. All of the recent gay youth suicides were on my mind, my heart was heavy and I needed a laugh. I love standup comedy. Thought this might cheer me up.

Didn't.

And then when I hear 50 Cent tweet this: "If you a man and your over 25 and you don't eat pu**y just kill your self damn it. The world will be a better place. Lol" I just don't know what to think.

*update. Another 2 suicides just reported. That makes 6 gay youth suicides in the last three weeks. 3 this week alone. Rest in peace, my brothers. I'm sorry I never got to help you.

Crazy Closeted Andrew Shirvell

Interactions with Andrew Shirvell - Cyber Bully, Bigot and Closeted Homosexual.

September 16 at 6:55pm My Message to Andrew on Facebook.

I mean it's bad enough that you're a pathetic online cyberbully but the really tragic part of it is that it's just so brutally painfully OBVIOUS that you're gay too!

Do you really think this is gonna fly, Sugar? It's TEXTBOOK! Every time you closet-case Republican cowards conducts a pathetic, bigoted and baseless witchhunt against LGBT people, it makes it clear as day that you think nobody will notice how gay YOU are. You all think it's a disguise.
"Oh, i know, I'll be really really anti-gay! That way NOBODY will ever suspect me!"
You're in for a big shock, little man. You're brutally, painfully, obviously gay. And the more you attack those who are Out, the deeper you're gonna dig youself into this hole. And that PATHETIC blog you run? It's gonna come back to haunt you. Big time. Throughout the rest of professional and personal life. You're just royally screwed yourself, kiddo. How do you want to be remembered? What do you think your legacy will be? You're on the losing side of history, and worse, you're a total Jewcatcher. Remember them? Selling out their own kind to the Gestapo, passing for gentiles, so that they could avoid their own persecution? That's you, man. And it's painfully obvious.

So what's your plan? Gonna keep up the charade until your own computer gets confiscated, the files are examined and your own truth Comes Out? It could happen. Keep being a cyber-bully and maybe someone will have reason to suspect you of criminal activity. Bring the whole house of cards down, eh?

It's bad enough to be a bigot in this day and age. Shameful, really. You'd be looked back on in history with the same embarrassment and disgust reserved for those who opposed Integration and fought against the Civil Rights Movement.

But you're something worse. You're a gay man who hates being gay so much that he promotes anti-gay bigotry as part of his disguise. You have blood on your hands, Andrew.

You were born a gay man. You will die a gay man. Nothing will ever change that. No matter what lies you tell, or what hatred you promote. You will always always always be a gay man. The sad thing is, you're choosing to hide and hurt others, when you could be a part of the solution to end prejudice and injustice in America.

What will be your legacy? Cowardice and shame and bigotry, or redemption?

You're fooling no one. Time is limited. You can't hide forever. Sooner or later, the truth always Comes Out.

Andrew Shirvell September 25 at 6:58pm Report

Wow, you’re such a wind-bag, Raymond! You're also a disordered SODOMITE (that's why u think everyone else is, too). SHAMEFUL!

Raymond September 25 at 11:51pm

"sodomite" means what, exactly?
what specific acts do you think all gay people do that no straight people do? do you think it's about specific sex acts? if so, which ones?

you spend a lot of time thinking about what gay men are doing. very odd ;-)

today my sodomite lifestyle involved dinner with friends, a theatre show, groceries and a trip to the library.
what's sinful about that?

keep it up, coward. it'll be your undoing.
:D

Raymond September 26 at 12:07am

and expect that everyone on your friends list, and all your family, will be informed of your shady doings.

so much for working against "Cyber-Bullying", eh? Can dish it but you can't take it?

If you keep it up, well, the harder you'll fall. You're fooling no one.

Andrew Shirvell September 26 at 12:12am Report

They all know about my "controversial" blog, you idiot. Everyone is very supportive. So good luck with your harassment campaign, Raymond.

P.S. Face it, now you're just getting plain pathetic!

Raymond September 26 at 12:14am

there's nothing pathetic about living a life of honesty and integrity while calling out a cowardly bigoted bully.

enjoy your blog, enjoy digging yourself deeper into a hole. i pity you. of course you're anti-gay. your family would disown you if they knew the truth. that's too bad.
my parents and i march in the pride parade together every year. im sorry you don't know what it's like to be loved and accepted for who you are.

so, keep up the blog. it's not gonna hurt Andrew. it is, however, going to seal your fate. you're never going to amount to anything in politics because of this.

you've lost.

Andrew Shirvell September 26 at 12:18am Report

Oh, yeah, hahahahah! P.S. I will be on some national news programs next week! Everyone will know about Armstrong now!!! So, unless you want to be featured next on the blog, I would suggest you leave me be and let sleeping dogs lie, ok, Miss Raymond?

Raymond September 26 at 12:46am

what don't you get? us openly gay guys don't care if people know that we're gay. we ENJOY our lives! you lie about Armstrong. flat-out. you're OBSESSED with him. this is going to come back to haunt you BIG TIME, bucko. You're never going to be taken seriously. Ever.
"Miss Raymond?" nice. good old fashioned misogyny, eh? And that proves my point, too: you're a closet case. Calling me "Miss" isn't an insult. I don't think females are lower or lesser than males. It's an insult to you, because you think less of women, and you're terrified of being associated with anything 'gay', even fun use of female pronouns. Because you're a closet case. You keep proving me right.
You're on my blog, I might as well be on yours :-) I have nothing to hide; a life of honesty, integrity and a life's work standing up against bigoted cowardly bullies like you.

And all these conversations here? Recorded. Saved. Posted.

Thanks. You do our work for us.

EDIT - after all this went down, Shirvell was taken to court. And he was found guilty.  This blog post was used as part of the court case against him and I'm very happy that Armstrong continues to flourish in life while Shirvell is destined for nothing - except paying millions for defamation and harassment.

What Company Do You Keep?

When This World Gets Too Crazy....

.....I have to remind myself that I have another home up north, in a country where freedom and equality are realities, not dreams. And there's a family and there are friends, and there's a hairy little lady with a wet nose and a big heart and I love them all.

:-)

Send in the Clones OR Who Are Your Friends?

Bars and clubs are interesting in that you see that not much as changed since high school. Cliques still exist. Duh. What's sad is that it really does seem that they exist for the same shallow reasons. People with the same body-type hanging out in a crew of guys with the exact same body-type.

I guess part of what I always liked about being in the "drama crowd" was our shared bond of drama. Both professional and personal (hehehe!). But it was neat to see how it played out over the years. I remember one girl who was chubby in freshman year, only to lose a tonne of weight over the summer, and returned as a skinny sophomore, who was now able to hang out with the very girls who'd excluded her the year before. Who cares if she had to be hospitalized for complications from bulimia by the end of junior year, she was finally cool...right?

Or living here in NYC, where we see the boys who come from smaller towns who realize that by going to the gym every day, they'll attract the attention of other guys who go to the gym every day. Some guys never leave the circle they gain entry to, all the while maintaining the physique required to keep their membership. Some guys tire of it (*elegant curtsy*) rather quickly and seek a new scene.

I did it. I was a shallow twat and wanted, as if afflicted with some fucked-up Aesthetic Stockholm Syndrome, the approval and acceptance of people I really didn't even know, who didn't know me, yet had still managed to be utterly dismissive dicks to me in public. It didn't last long, thank God. Because not only was I bored senseless by the world I was given access to, I was also fed up of working out all the time.

Life turns up empty, and you're so dissatisfied, because you're not actually listening to yourself and doing what you want: you're still acting, perpetually auditioning for the lead role in someone else's idea of your life, instead of changing the plot yourself and claiming it.

Confessions of a Mormon Missionary - Part 1

So this dude on craigslist has been spilling his guts about how bad he felt for being a mormon missionary and propagating mormon lies. This is info from one of his posts, exposing the racism that used to permeate the church, and what many see is still silently existing.

Until 1981 2 Nephi 30:6 in the Book of Mormon taught that dark-skinned Lamanites (Indians) would eventually experience a change in the color of their skin should they embrace the Book of Mormon. This passage of Mormon scripture read:

"...their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people."

However, in 1981, the LDS Church decided to change "the most correct book on earth" and switched the word "white" with the word "pure." Some Mormons insist that this was a clarification since the word was never meant to refer to a person with dark skin pigmentation who would magically turn white based upon a conversion to the Mormon gospel; rather, it is claimed that the change referred to a cleaner state of heart. This assumption is definitely not supported in the Book of Mormon since 2 Nephi 5:21 says,

"And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, and they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."

Furthermore, we find another reference to a change in skin color in 3 Nephi 2:15. This passage reads:

"And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites."

That the context refers to skin color is verified by a number of LDS leaders including Joseph Smith. Mormon author George D. Smith notes that Joseph Smith was given a revelation which foretold of a day when intermarriage with the Lamanites would produce a white and delightsome posterity. George Smith wrote, "This unpublished 17 July 1831 revelation was described three decades later in an 1861 letter from W.W. Phelps to Brigham Young quoting Joseph Smith: `It is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity, may become white, delightsome and just.' In the 8 December 1831 Ohio Star, Ezra Booth wrote of a revelation directing Mormon elders to marry with the `natives'" (Sunstone, November 1993, footnote #5, pg. 52).

Second LDS President Brigham Young stated in 1859, "You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation ...When the Lord has a people, he makes covenants with them and gives unto them promises: then, if they transgress his law, change his ordinances, and break his covenants he has made with them, he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people" (Journal of Discourses 7:336).

At the October 1960 LDS Church Conference, Spencer Kimball utilized 2 Nephi 30:6 when he stated how the Indians "are fast becoming a white and delightsome people." He said, "The [Indian] children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation" (Improvement Era, December 1960, pp. 922-3).

During the same message Kimball referred to a 16-year-old Indian girl who was both LDS and "several shades lighter than her parents..." He went on to say, "These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated."

LDS writer George Edward Clark gives a similar account in his book entitled "Why I Believe." On page 129 he wrote, "The writer has been privileged to sit at table with several members of the Catawba tribe of Indians, whose reservation is near the north border of South Carolina. That tribe, or most of its people, are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). Those Indians, at least as many as I have observed, were white and delightsome, as white and fair as any group of citizens of our country. I know of no prophecy, ancient or modern, that has had a more literal fulfillment" (emphasis his).

It has also been taught in Mormonism that opposite repercussions could result when a white man abandoned his Mormon faith. For instance, the "Juvenile Instructor" (26:635) reads,

"From this it is very clear that the mark which was set upon the descendants of Cain was a skin of blackness, and there can be no doubt that this was the mark that Cain himself received; in fact, it has been noticed in our day that men who have lost the spirit of the Lord, and from whom his blessings have been withdrawn, have turned dark to such an extend as to excite the comments of all who have known them."

In 1857, Brigham Young declared that apostates would "become gray-haired, wrinkled, and black, just like the Devil" (Journal of Discourse 5:332).

Despite the comments from past Mormon leaders, skin color has nothing to do with a person's spirituality. To say 2 Nephi 30:6 was altered merely for clarification and had nothing to do with skin color is without merit. It was a false prophecy, nothing more, nothing less.

Woo-Hoo!

Love, Little Kiwi

4:41am Stoned Thoughts on Gay Republicans

I like to call them "Jewcatchers" myself. Apparently that's an "offensive" term. I thought that was the whole point of using such words with a sense of irony - you shock and educate at the same time. Anyway, back to my main thesis: Gay Republicans Have Capers For Testes.

That will be a song, at some point, in that musical I keep meaning to write but never get around to even starting.

Now, the thoughts!

Are All Gay Republicans Self-loathing?

(the following text is in uber-university style all-lower case angst-font)

anyone that tries to avoid being discriminated against by helping, or sitting back and WATCHING, while the people they support direct anti-gay bigotry at OTHERS is not only self-loathing, but a coward.

and if there are still people here who think that legalizing Gay Marriage *only* affects LGBT people who want to get married, or that DADT *only* causes problems for LGBT people who want to serve in the military...well...those people need to wake up - government-sanctioned anti-gay discrimination affects ALL of us.

when a country has laws that exist solely to DISCRIMINATE AGAINST LGBT PEOPLE then that country will never be freed from an oppressive majority of anti-gay bigots.

for real.
so are they all self-hating? not necessarily, although more than often likely many are.
most are simply lazy, greedy, selfish, gay with white privilege and complacent.
a few others are pussy-whipped little bigots themselves, who try to win the affection of their racist white Christian parents by joining them in voting GOP. "don't worry ma and pa, i still hate blacks and muslims, i'm a'vote GOP with you and maybe one day you'll like me again"

Many simply sit on their asses and choose not to "care" about LGBT Equality Issues. They don't fight for them, they don't champion them, and they don't have the backbone to express how important these Human Civil Rights issues are, because doing so would cause them to be seen as one of those "lefty-liberal activist queers", and they don't want that. oh, no no no.

Wimps.

but a lot are self-loathing, and base their entire sense of self-worth on "not doing what other gays do", which to their pea-brains means voting Republican. These wimps are often very bitter and angry towards "stereotypical" gay males, too. Why? Because their bigoted parents are, and they need to side with their bigoted parents to save their own asses. Cowards, cowards, cowards. GOProud recently hosted a 'homocon' with Ann Coulter speaking. Their promo-slogan: "Our gays are more butch than their straights" - again proving me right; they're obsessed with gender-norms, and appearing "like real men", because those are the ideas spouted and promoted by their bigoted families.

Oh, and GOProud and the website "Gay Patriot" are both against Gay Marriage. For real. "Gay Patriot" and its members are against gay marriage. GOProud chooses to "not get involved in what they feel is a State's issue..." - but both take their stance for the same pathetic reason: fighting for gay marriage would piss of the people they align themselves with.

Thus, we have gay men who cut off their own balls as an offering to the Republican Bullies they're desperate to be accepted by. "I cut off my balls, I'm not like those other gays, I promise to do what you say, so please leave me alone! I'll help you insult those other Liberal gays!"

Fucking Embarrassing.

There was comment made on a youtube video of mine about addressing bigotry in the Republican Party. The comment was made by a young gay republican. First he commented on how "wrong" my video was, and that the GOP was not bigoted. Then he said he supported DOMA, because "gays don't need to marry." Then he said "Republicans have a right to hate gays! freedom of speech!" *so right there we know boy isn't firing on all cylinders, he officially doesn't actually know what he's talking about*

But his final comment (and he left quite a few) was this: "I'm not oppressed because I agree with them."

My point exactly. You slap yourself in the face in hopes they won't slap you. You shoot yourself first so that they don't shoot you. You swallow their hate and go along with their bigotry, and that way they don't direct their anti-gay hate at YOU, but at "those other gays."

It's actually sad what a person like that gets reduced to.

and remember: if you can tell gay guys that you're a republican, but can't tell all your fellow republicans that you're gay, then you need to sit and think about what that means for a few hours.

My friend Christian is a bit more direct:

"Two types of gay republicans come to mind:

1) The self-loathing homosexual who compartmentalizes his sexuality and attempts to minimize the role it plays in his and other gay people's public status

2) The money-grubbing libertarian who supposedly believes in civil liberties, but not in any kind of social obligation to fund, resource, or enable their creation or protection."

I'm kind of in love with him.

:-)

Love, Little Kiwi