bicrim | (no subject)

When I was in college in the mid and late 90s, the more mainstream parts of the movement were just starting to talk about how we needed to go for marriage and the military. I, and many other radicals, disagreed. We were not ever going to be "just like" the heteronormative culture and people, and we didn't want to be. We wanted to focus on dismantling patriarchy, capitalism, racism, and the like.

That said, I never thought I would see marriage equality in my lifetime. I mean, it was still illegal to have queer sex in many states when I came out. We were illegal. To go from literal bedroom raids and arrests to legal marriage in 20 years is astounding. To go from the President not acknowledging that we were dying in droves to the White House lit up in pride colors is awe inspiring.

We have so much more work to do, and I'm still a radical, I still believe that we need to fight capitalism and bring power to the people. I'm still a bisexual femme dyke who would rather fight the patriarchy than fight in the military. However, what a feeling of acknowledgment, of validation, for my people. What a day.

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Ananda is queer and surrounded by young LGBT women of all sorts, and I almost feel like they don't get how big this is. They're so into very worthy causes like trans rights and LGBT youth homelessness, and none of them are even really interested in getting married. I actually sat my kids all down for a "listen - not everyone feels like Dad and I, ok?!" history lesson earlier :p

It would be cool to offer a homeschool summer LGBT history class, using mostly films. You could start with the pre stonewall era, move through stonewall to AIDS, to the past 20 years. It would be good for them. Like a once a week movie and discussion group.

Hmmmmm....that sounds like a good idea, actually. Although some of their parents would NEVER go for it - since she's started at an audition-in arts charter, she's found more community but also way more parents who are totally unaware of who their kids actually ARE. Our homeschooling friends are usually pretty liberal families that encourage their kids to be just as autistic or obsessed with cosplay or determined to save the bees as they wanna be. Often practicing pagan and/or in illegal food cults for raw milk, etc. So she's got the outcast queer kids with mainstream parents in school with her now, and it's so different. Her school bff was grounded to the point of extreme isolation and threatened with being pulled from the school when her parents realized she had a girlfriend. They don't like Ananda just on suspicion (shaved hair AND roller derby O_O *gasp*). She's already teaching everyone at school what things like "pansexual" and "gender fluid" mean, because nobody else knew.

She's spending most of the summer with her homeschooled friends, who she's seen little these past few months. They're all older and uber-political, very tumblr-educated, constantly teaching her historical and policy things. Mia and Izzy could probably design the course you're talking about. But they'd rather watch cartoons and raid the fridge, when they're here to spend the night.

We should at least put together a tumblr post and send it off into the ether, with links and things for the stuff you're talking about. Because I think a LOT of young LGBT and allies are in a similar marriage-apathetic, dismantle-the-catpitalist-patriarchy place. And Annie at least would sit down with me to watch some films...

YAY!!!!!!!

And yes, patriarchy and capitalism need to go. But that's going to take waay more than 20 years.

::Hugs you!::