I’ll keep this one pretty brief here, just wanted to throw out my two cents on the whole bigots boycott oreo issue.
I’m not an oreo eater, haven’t had them in ages, nor do I personally partake of snacks like poptarts, ritz, pringles crisps etc…however, I must say I do appreciate the positive PR they are giving our communities civil rights campaign movement, its big names coming out in support and that means it draws attention to the issues and I think thats great.
What I don’t think is great is the level of immaturity being displayed by the bigots of this country as they announce ‘we’re boycotting you homo loving companies’, whatever man, thats your right. Its immature as fuck, but its your right to boycott whatever the fuck you damn well please, have at it folks. Though, even this may have its positive side…these people will be forced to go on a a diet of some sort because its not just oreo, like i said above, its- pringles, ritz, twizlers, poptarts, and many more of the food brands…not to mention places like starbucks, nike, adidas, and many other name brand products & places these folks go to every day…so if you’re going to boycott oreo for loving the homos, you’ll have to boycott those places as well, otherwise you’re being total hypocrites (not that we’d expect any less, especially fact being that many homophobes are in fact themselves closet cases). And if they do that, well where are they going to get their stuff? lol.
I have a pin that sums up succinctly the ONE fact that these people seem to miss, it reads ‘someone you know is gay’…its true. we’re everywhere people and we’re sure as fuck not going anywhere, so you had just best get used to it…we’re here, we’re queer and we’re not going anywhere as it were people! I guarantee that SOMEONE you know, mr/mrs homophobia, someone in YOUR LIFE, possibly even someone close to you, is gay. The world hasn’t ‘gone gay’ we’re just able to be out & proud in most places these days w/out too much fear of getting the holy living hell beat out of us and the more we trend in that direction the better off we’ll be but the at the same time, the more backlash we’ll have from people like the oreo boycotting bigots here. We are, slowly but surely winning this fight but its a long battle (as we can see w/the civil rights movements that have come before, the seemingly impossible takes time…like you all, though, I too hate the ‘hurry up and wait’ aspect).
One thing about people like this that I will never understand is- dude…you’re seriously SO HATEFUL you are boycotting a cookie? really? whoa…
thanks for th positive PR nabisco & oreo and others
ok, this one is a lil bizzare lookin but ya know lol…i bet kids would love it if they actually sold some like this
on the topic of disrespect for trans people in this country (and in general) and the fact that we are often treated as the butt of jokes, I thought I’d bring to attention an advert I found while surfing around the net. Its old, from the 90’s in fact, but its still a shining example of the ignorant and ‘freak show attraction’ sort of regard in which we are held…the ad was for the hotel chain Holiday Inn (someplace you wont catch me after seeing an advert like this, not that I’d probably stay there anyway, but i digress), in which they…well here, lemme copy over the description because typing it out is gonna make me see multiple shades of red…
“In the 1990s, the Holiday Inn hotel chain decided to get with the times and undergo a billion dollar renovation. When it was finished, they chose the 1997 Super Bowl as the venue in which to brag about it. They ran a commercial that depicted two classmates at a high school reunion. One tries to place the name of the beautiful woman standing before him and after a few guesses, he figures it out — the vision of beauty before him used to be named Bob.
The voice-over then goes on to reason that since the thousands of dollars that “Bob” had spent had been such a success, wouldn’t the same hold true for a billion-dollar hotel chain renovation? As it turned out, the answer was no. Not only did the campaign fail to renew interest in the chain, it was deemed offensive by LGBT groups, who boycotted the hotel. ”
still from the ad… and instances like this are exactly WHY i sure as fuck wouldn’t be caught dead at my 10yr reunion…hell to the NO!
frankly I’m appalled…and like i said, i know this is over a decade old but still, the audacity of such an ad speaks volumes of the blatant disregard for the feelings of those in the trans community, this sort of attitude leads to incidents like the recent fiasco w/cake boss and how they made Poor Carmen Carerra cry :(. Its good to know this ad got yanked and, of course, the national GLBT community largely boycotted the chain, but still, the fact that they even put together such an ad just, WHOA man, the galling ignorance is stomach turning, and this sort of idea (that its ok to call a trans person by their former name and/or pronoun just because ‘you just found out’ or whatever is all too common and extremely frustrating, not to mention very emotionally painful to the trans person in question…when i came out my dad told me ‘i’m ok w/it but you’ll always be my little girl’ and i had to tell him, no dad, NO i wont because i never was ‘your little girl’ i was a young man TRAPPED & IMPRISONED against my will because we have no say in how we are born into this world, only in how we will turn out…and we only have so much say in that). Yes, when you first find out that your old high school chum who used to be ‘bob’ (in the case of the ad) is now nancy or sue, you do get a FEW slip ups w/a free pass and only a minor warning, after that though you’re expected to adapt like a fucking intellectual adult WOULD and get it the fuck right, after that, we start getting increasingly hurt and/or pissed off (and w/good reason). And adverts like this perfectly illustrates the sort of attitude that is keeping me AWAY from my 10yr reunion next year, not even gonna go there.
Speaking of offensive adverts, while we’re at it, here’s a link to the list of the top 10 most offensive adverts of 2011…and OOOOOH MAN are they some doozies…i mean DAMN, we’re talking like Mitt Romney levels of blindingly ignorant for not noticing HOW offensive these ads were when they were conceived (seriously HOW DID THESE MAKE IT? either onto tv or into magazines, i will NEVER know because DAMN…just WOW!…the first one especially, recivilize yourself???? WHOA! just…i don’t have words for how racist, bigoted and incredibly insanely inappropriate that ad is, i just can’t see how it got past and published/run…it shall forever be a mystery)
so cake boss did ‘apologize’ I use pretty heavy sarcasm because it wasn’t much of an apology, it was an attempt to try & excuse their obscenely RUDE and disrespectful behavior by playing off as ‘oh i was only jokin, i didn’t mean to HURT anyones feelings’ yeah, BULLSHIT! if your intent wasn’t to make fun of Miss Carmen, then what WAS your intent?
*taps foot* well, i’m WAITING mr. cake boss man…oh whats that? you don’t HAVE an answer, well what a surprise. people like you and yours absolutely sicken me because you’re a shining example of one of the many problems in this country, the main one being utterly blatant and flagrant IGNORANCE of, well, just about everything.
While we appreciate your ‘apology’ mr. cake boss, it doesn’t come across as at all sincere and instead comes across as a smell pile of shit you plopped out in an attempt to save some face in the PR department…i some how doubt it will placate the community though (certainly doesn’t placate my ass…you didn’t MEAN to hurt her??? you didn’t MEAN to? then what exactly DID you mean by making her the butt of an extremely transphobic joke??? again…waiting for that answer that, if ever it comes, i know wont be satisfactory). this is NOT a joking matter you asswipe shit stain, this is serious shit and you have seriously bitch slapped our T community right in its face.
you can read their ‘apology‘ on their face book page…and the commentary on the ‘apology’ on cake boss’s face book is just as ignorant…seriously, how do you NOT SEE how hurtful this is? oh right, you’re ignorant, braying jack asses who have no hearts…right, silly me 😛
you CAN NOT just play this off as a ‘WHOOPS my bad, der, sorry’ incident when you had MET w/the individual in question before shooting and discussed what terms were APPROPRIATE to describe and transitioned trans person…but did you use those words? NO, you decided it would be MUCH funnier to freak out ‘cousin anthony’ (who is doubtlessly homophobic, judging by their reaction to this bullshit shenanigans…said individual also refers to Carmen as ‘it’ in their twitter feed, further disrespect but oh my, who’s surprised, raise your hands…oh look, no one…) by telling him he had been flirting with ‘a man’…not a trans woman, not someone who was BORN male and transitioned, no, you decided it would be SO MUCH FUNNIER if you just called her out on national television as a freak, and you’re trying to play it off as ‘oh sorry, we didn’t MEAN anything by it’ yeah, you know what mr. cake boss, FUCK YOU! you can sit & spin mother fucker, assholes like you make me want to wretch, you give me the fucking dry heaves like the hangover from hell (and a headache to match w/your ignorance & utterly blatant stupidity).
i encourage all of you to go tell mr. cake boss man just how you feel on the facebook page (link above, hyper linked) and let him know that his half ass ‘apology’ isn’t good enough and tell him right were he can stick it. we are not amused and your ‘oh i was just jokin der hur hur’ apology doesn’t cut it and definitely isn’t reading sincere or like you’re SORRY for jack shit, what you’re really sorry for is that you embarrassed your worthless hide and made the show look like a show run by jack asses…which, fact being that it clearly is, job well done ass wipe!
also, be sure to go to Carmen’s page and tell her how much you appreciate her and give her hugs because she had to endure this bullshit which she SO did NOT deserve. *HUGS FOR CARMEN!* ❤ stay strong chica, your T community and your fans all LOVE YOU! ❤
friends, I come to you today to ask that you help spread the word about this very unfortunate incident involving a show on TLC called ‘cake boss‘ (i honestly have no idea what that is, nor do i care to find out after the shit they pulled), who had our girl Carmen Carrera on an episode and said they would use the proper and respectful terms to describe her and then blatantly threw in a ‘whoa thats a MAN’ moment…WTF people, where do you get off?
The incident reasonably upset poor Carmen, apparently made her cry even (poor girl, i would too), and i ask that you sign the petition along w/me to send them a message that this sort of behavior is shamefully wrong and that they should publically apologize for this bullshit because it is NOT ok.
You think its FUN being born into the wrong body fuckers? you think its FUN to make fun of trans individuals & people w/GID? you have no heart! people w/this problem frequently commit suicide because they just can’t COPE with the way society treats us like circus freaks, we are NOT some side show attraction for you to gawk at people, we are REAL people just like you, w/REAL emotions and the shit you pull frankly is so incredibly hurtful sometimes that you’re luck trans people are largely non-violent unless they’re actively being threatened at the moment because i’d hate to see what would happen if we weren’t.
If Carmen walked down the street, and you had no familiarity w/Rupaul’s drag race, or who Carmen was, you WOULD NOT be able to clock that! that is an unclockable, 100% passable piece of hot female right there! and you had no right to call her out like that on public television of ALL places you scum.
thats my two cents on the subject, Carmen honey I’m sorry you had to go through that, its not right and I sincerely hope they publicly apologize like they should. *hugs* stay strong girl! much love to you & all my trans sisters & bros.
PS- HAPPY FUCKIN PRIDE MONTH *RAINBOW CONFETTI* go out there and get you some! (some booze, some hot ass, some partyin it up, whatever you want, its pride and its a month long mardi gras ALL OVER the country! WOOO!…someone slam some tequila for me since i can’t drink 😉 LOL)
so I’ve been kicking around the idea of writing a children’s book for some time now, several years, and I’m finally getting around to sitting down and hashing out like actual details and such. It would be fully written and illustrated by myself and would be basically a simplified & slightly altered (altering some of the more traumatic life instances to be something a lil less nightmarish, don’t want the poor kids to have bad dreams on my part…so instead of being beaten up for wearing dads clothes I’ll think of something a bit less traumatizing to put in…was grounded or something ya know) story of my life. I think it would be good to have some children story appropriate material to read to children on issues like being trans, it would help them be better adjusted toward dealing with encountering the concept of transexuality & intersex people later in life.
the reason I have mostly settled on the title ‘little cinderella boy’ is because I had a very cinderella sort of experience growing up…I had to do 3/4s of the household chores, anything that went wrong was some how my fault (those of you who have read the cross over posts from WTMC- welcome to my cell- know what i’m talking about) etc and so forth, and I eventually ran away and found my handsome prince who took me away from it all. Its also, in its own way, my effort in the ‘it gets better’ project (which given the social backlash currently prevalent in our society of late, I think is a good thing to have around as a reminder that YES things SUCK, but it will get better, the impossible takes a little time as they say).
I’ll share some preliminary sketches once I’ve got them and I’m still working on the language of the book…i can’t decide whether to refer to my past (childhood) self in the male or female pronoun, its a little hard to hammer out and i’m concerned that using the male pronoun w/the pictures of the ‘little girl’ might get confusing, both for the kid and for the reader (if that makes any sense), anyone have any thoughts? I want it to be easily comprehended.
sorry this post is over a day late, depression is something i have chronic issues with (as well as other psych problems) and I kept getting side tracked and forgetting to sit down and hammer this out real quick. If you have any thoughts or input leme know. Cheers!
It is all to well known a fact that I am an avid fan of the 1990s NBC sitcom ‘Frasier’ and have been ever since my youth (around age 13), I started watching the early season reruns in the mid 90s and then, once I had caught up to the current story arch, I started catching it in prime time. For whatever reason my family weren’t fans of the show (probably too intelligent for them…sad but true) but I had always been naturally drawn to it. It was often asserted by my friends at school that the show was ‘so gay’ and around my freshmen year actor David Hyde Pierce, who played Niles Crane, came out of the closet after much speculation on the part of the general public and media. It made a lot of sense to me and more over it made sense that he was the character I was most drawn to.
Well, in recent years I downloaded the entire series and have been enjoying it in my free time, often times I throw on a playlist of my favorite episodes to listen to while I sleep, and, naturally, I have become interested in Frasier trivia…its the natural path of any fandom, you want to know all about it. Well, it turns out that David wasn’t the ONLY gay actor playing it ‘straight’ on the show…in fact it seems producer & main star Kelsey Grammer has a bit of a thing for putting gay actors in straight rolls and having straight characters mistaken for gay for comedic purposes. One of these I’m sure most of my fellow Frasier fans have already guessed but I’m betting the other two will surprise you ever bit as much as they did me.
We’ll start w/actor Edward Hibbert AKA Gil Chesterton, KACL’s premier food critic and absolutely flaming fop. On a number of occasions Gil has gone out of his way to ‘IN’ himself, as Frasier put it, by mentioning his ‘wife’ (more mutual beard as she is most likely a lesbian, it is HEAVILY implied) Deb whom his coworkers all assumed was his cat. He rants about how people are so presumptuous and that ‘honestly, just because a man dresses well and knows how to use a pastry bag makes people jump to wild conclusions!’ (Season 5, episode 17 ‘the perfect guy’). However, off & on throughout the series it is continually hinted that the character Gil is in fact gay and in the third episode of season 11 ‘The Doctor is Out’, the audience is finally given a nod that yes, Gil is indeed on the ‘down low’ and as queer as a football bat, when he is seen lurking outside bad billy’s reading the paper when Roz & her boyfriend approach to enter her apt. after they go upstairs he tosses the paper on the stack and runs down stairs after straightening his bow tie. As I have mentioned in a prior post on the blog, actor Edward Hibbert is one of our fine gay actors & advocates for our queer rights. Finding this out was about as surprising as learning that David was gay, a pleasant surprise but hardly shocking :).
NO, the real surprise are the two actors who’s characters play it so straight you probably never would have suspected. That would be actors Dan Butler (Bulldog Brisko) and John Mahoney…OMG SHUT UP :O! (no wonder he ended up on my foxy grandpa list…when I was first looking up cast members a few months ago I pulled up an image of him to see how he was aging and was like ‘yeah, I’d totally hit that’ 😉 mystery solved) for real real, he’s well known in the Chicago GLBT scene, though he’s not out to the general public in the sense that no one has ever asked him and he has never felt the need to make a public statement about it. Understandable given the generation he’s from, he learned to fake it really well to avoid getting beaten up doubtless. Even if he’s not out entirely, at the very least he knows he can go around his neighborhood etc. w/out being harassed about it etc.
Upon finding out about the later two I was stunned ridged, it explains why those were the characters I was always most drawn too (not unlike my natural draw to George Takei as Sulu in original star trek), and I never would have suspected either of them because they are so talented as actors in those rolls that you really cant’ tell. I gotta say though, it made my day finding out because it makes every episode of Frasier that much better now and I have all the more appreciation for the sheer talent that went into that silly little show. I have always said that one of the truest tests of an actors ability is how well you can convince your audience while playing opposite your true sexual orientation (if I had seen Patrick Stewart in Jeffery first and not star trek NG, I would have SWORN he was gay and I don’t think anything short of the actor saying so himself would have convinced me otherwise…speaking of, he guest stars in the episode ‘the doctor is out’ as a gay opera director and he once again flames FABULOUSLY!). Frasier truly was the gayest show on tv at the time, the only male main cast member who ISN’T gay (unless he’s still in the closet, though i never really got gay off him) is Kelsey, how fun is that?
I certainly have all the deeper appreciation for my Frasier & its cast now, I hope you do too. Be sure to go out and have a giggle at some of their hilarious antics, especially ‘match maker'(S2, E3), ‘out with dad'(S7, E15), ‘the doctor is out’ (S11, E3) and ‘the dog that rocks the cradle'(S7, E5) all showcase some of the best mistaken orientation gags in the series (dog that rocks the cradle is really more Dan Butler playing it straight amazingly well, like he always does). Watch & enjoy, and be sure to read up on the actors on their wiki pages (their names are hyper linked). Here’s to the INCREDIBLY flaming cast of Frasier! Thanks for the years of talented acting and great comedy you brought us in the 90s! CHEERS!
PS- Below is the latest update from Carmen, telling us all about how her surgery went, since I’m following her transition I thought I’d share to help keep y’all updated. Cheers (omg, you gonna look amazing once you’re all healed…not that you weren’t already FLAWLESS 😉 but you knew that <3)
comparing how i looked in 2008 when i got married and how i look compared to my blood relatives in particular…oh yeah, STILL be best lookin one of the bunch (and the smartest)…
the brains, the beauty…i got the full package
EAT IT HONEY!!!! *SNAP*
just wanted to share a photo comparison i put together, the main photo is a group shot from my wedding day, the two on the right hand side are two photos of me from this week, the one of me in my yellow hoody from only a few minutes ago. I wanted to compare & contrast the images, not just to see how my face has changed & aged over all since then, but to compare how much facial hair my brothers had vs. how much MORE I have. EAT IT!
*NOTE- in 2008 I had been on hormones for just over a year
(to those who don’t know, i’m not on terms w/my family at ALL, this was the LAST time i saw them and w/any luck, it’ll stay that way :D…hard as it may be for some to understand, sometimes you’re just better off and as an adult you have the right to say NO to the abuse…so i said NO! NO MORE!)
this is actually a sweatshirt i designed as a commentary on the democrats who sat by and did so little during the Bush years…now I present it as a very SPECIAL sweatshirt for our VERY SPECIAL president…frankly we should REALLY push for the reinstitution of stem cell research…it only takes a fetus a few months to grow a spine, NOT FOUR YEARS AND CHANGE!
Tonights blog is actually going to be something different than anticipated, last night I said the next article I typed you would be on the subject of the incredibly gay cast of Frasier, we’ll get to that another night.
This morning I got word via the internet that one of my favorite childhood authors who was very influential on my life both as a child and even now, had passed away. That author, as I’m sure most of you already read, was Maurice Sendak, beloved author of two of my favorite children’s stories ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and ‘In the Night Kitchen’. The reason I’m writing about him here is because, some of you may not have known, he was one of us. He was gay and he was never able to fully come out. I had no idea.
I wanted to share w/you a very special reading of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, read by Christopher Walken (one of my favorite actors) in his charming voice, I think its the best reading I’ve ever heard myself. In short, if Mr. Sendak was someone who encouraged your imagination to run wild, take a quite moment, sit back and honor his memory w/this lovely reading. Its very soothing :). Mr. Sendak, you will be dearly, dearly missed, you were a wonderful author & illustrator and your books will live on forever.
R.I.P. Maurice Bernard Sendak June 10, 1928- May 8, 2012
I also wish to promote the following artist & their etsy shop, they sell adorable cards & stationary and one of their sections is dedicated to quotes from ‘Where the Wild Things Are’
Vitamin Gay 
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