The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - LGBT Edition Week 3

All images are owned by the original authors.

THE GOOD

I'm not a poetry critic, by any means. But I know when someone's words make me think or feel. @steampunk-penny writes Existence Is Resistance and I hope it makes at least one of you grasp that for many transgender people, just walking out the front door is an act of courage.

@voiceofhealth wrote two brilliant pieces about self-acceptance and the invisibility forced upon LGBT people by those who claim to love us most.

@bodhi.agora reminds me why I never judge a book by its cover.

@tygertyger is strong and vulnerable and braver than I will ever be in this submission for a Steemit writing contest.

@tommypoppers is now a hero of mine.

I say this one's for the haters, even if @mariacaffrey is objectively more diplomatic about it than I am.

Silver linings: Some of DTube's curators appear to be douchey self-entitled little boys, but @crazybgadventure joined the LGBT+ Discord.

@samuel.harumi shared three revealing posts about his "top surgery" here, here, and here. If any of the religious nutjobs who troll my blog would like to explain how and why someone does this instead of, say, buying a house, I'd love to hear it. We do it because we have to, not because we want to.

@lynrye shared this poem written by her friend. The original can be read here, and I have copied it below, because it's amazing.

Ghost Story

Only 16% of Americans
say they know a transgender person.
Meanwhile, 18% of Americans
claim they have seen a ghost.

In 2016, Human Rights Campaign cheerfully
updated these findings, saying that now,
35% of likely voters say they have met
a transgender person.

Finally, I am more plausible than ghost.

But even that’s too optimistic because 45%
of Americans believe in ghosts
even if they’ve never seen one.

A trans body is not realistic
until splayed on a gurney.

Nobody believes a trans story
they haven’t consumed
like a dime-store novel
the reality show in side-by-side slots
with Ghost Hunters Season 11. No one
believes the transition
they haven’t jacked off to.

We are your porn stars
your trauma porn, inspiration porn,
spectacles for public consumption.

And here’s why: 66% of Americans
who have met a trans person
say they support transgender rights
while only 13% of other Americans do.

Human Rights Campaign suggests this
is an outreach opportunity.

Outreach, as we owe the world our stories.
Our friendship, a bargain with (and for) our lives.
Hoping you’ll enjoy the ghost story
and it won’t end in an exorcism.

There are approximately 1.4 million transgender people in America.
So to introduce ourselves to the 274 million Americans
who find us less plausible than ghosts is 196 bigots apiece.
I think of every person who has casually asked me about my genitals
in the grocery store checkout line and I wonder where my tally’s at.

This world demands we play the role of porn star
spread our legs, our stories, our traumas splayed
to prove ourselves worthy of dignity.
I know the violence of this expectation
and I know our survival depends
on you believing we exist.

I do not owe you an explanation.
But I know the alternative is another
trans person getting my 196 bigots.
I cannot let myself fade to invisible
when more of us become ghosts every night.

But how much longer do we have to keep up the crime scene tape
of our trauma, for rubberneckers to think us urgent?

How much longer must we compete for legitimacy with ghosts?
How long until we can rest in peace?

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THE BAD

@outtheshellvlog, who many of you know as cryptodeaf, is like the Dear Abby of Steemit. Or maybe more like Dan Savage. So that's good. The jerk asking him for advice though ...

@lacunaperpetual won't see this because she muted me. I wonder why she was banned from Twitter ...

JK Rowling is trying too hard to please everyone and ends up looking more like she doesn't believe in anything unless she runs it by a focus group first. via @kathtea

And the usual tinfoil hat conspiracy theories, this time courtesy of @aagabriel.

I learned how to facepalm in German today. Thanks, @weinermelange!

---

THE UGLY

@quitefrankly is thinking an awful lot about transgender women's breasts.

@gurusosiologi: Deviance is a subjective moral judgement, and our species would be extinct if we were all as homogenized as you seem to advocate.

Any day now, there will be a massive gay orgy in Aceh, Indonesia. @taufiksagoe will be liberated by the open acceptance of his desire to have sex with men.

@newq spends a lot of time thinking about very specific sexual scenarios, none of which are mentioned in the video he included.

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