But it’s not about performing stereotypes, honest!
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Dead Wild Roses: Surviving the Cult of Queer – From the Incessant Sentinel
Only by telling and retelling of stories can we raise the consciousness of others. Thank you for your words Incessant Sentinel. Surviving the Cult of Queer Grooming The general concept of grooming is often too narrowly defined. While, yes, we usually see it used to reference paedophiles grooming young children,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Why I’m Skipping Stonewall 50 – David Thorstad
The hunger for effective gay liberation movement is real. It would seem at least Mr.Thorstad is tired of rearranging the gender-identity deckchairs on the good-ship “Oppression Titanic”. “By the twenty-fifth anniversary of Stonewall in 1994, I regarded the gay movement as already mostly dead, although the commemorations did include some
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: I’m back, breaking my blogging fast
Facebook, with its at-best superficial ways of linking me to my world, has taken me away from greater reflection possible in this blog so…I’m back – on my journey here. The past few weeks I have been involved with the Youth/Elders Project, a joint effort of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre,
Continue readingKersplebedeb | Kersplebedeb: ALERT! Guards harassing LBTQ2+ Prisoners at GVI Women’s Prison!
At Grand Valley Institute for Women (GVI), a federal prison in Kitchener, Ontario (in Canada) there has been a recent crackdown against LBTQ2+ prisoners and/or prisoners in relationships amongst themselves. Intimate relationships between prisoners are being attacked by a clique of guards acting without apparent direction or oversight from the Corrections Canada administration. We need
Continue readingArt Threat: Montreal Fringe: Laureen: Queen of the Tundra
As an American expat unfamiliar with the pop-cultural aspect of Canadian politics, a lot of the jokes in Laureen: Queen of the Tundra went over my head. However, it is to the performers’ credit that this did not distract from their commentary about the fluidity of gender and culture, against
Continue readingArt Threat: Performing Aloha in Queer Times
In 2001, filmmakers Kathryn Xian and Brent Anbe broke new ground with their documentary Ke Kulana He Mahu: Remembering a Sense of Place. The film, which documents the lives, struggles, and aspirations of several queer and trans Kanaka Maoli (Indigenous Hawaiians), also made an important and, at the time, novel
Continue readingArt Threat: A visceral, jarring work: A review of Children 404
“Children like me simply don’t exist for them.” With these ominous words, spoken over a crackling telephone connection, Children 404 draws to a close; its unsettling conclusion signaled by an image of the Russian landscape fading into obscurity, scrubbed out by a layer of broken cloud seen from above, through
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: Anglos need to break from the Québec Liberals
It’s rare hearing English in the streets near my house. Less rare is the number of parades that march nearby. The St. Patrick’s parade offered a good dose of both occurrences. Amid heavy snowflakes, eleven of us flyered on behalf of Québec Solidaire and our candidate, Marie-Ève Duchesne. When I
Continue readingArt Threat: Gender Mender: XXY is a cinematic exploration of intersexuality
From a purely organizational standpoint, there are plenty of reasons for the gender binary. The system delineates male and female characteristics as separate and static, ostensibly facilitating a natural and sustainable social order. It readily assigns roles and packages gender identity. It is convenient – when it works. The problem
Continue readingezra winton: Old and new political satire
These two short political satires (above) are from different eras (1986 and 2013, respectively) and tackling totally different issues (colonization/racism and sexuality/homophobia, respectively), but watching the newer of the two, Love Is All You Need totally reminded me of BabaKieuria, a classic that has been long-forgotten in the canons of
Continue readingArt Threat: Friday Film Pick: Things are Different Now
Ryan Conrad recently pulled his film from the Frameline San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival because the festival, despite a robust budget and years of protest from filmmakers, audiences and activists, continues to accept money from the Israeli consulate. Conrad joins a growing list of artists who are taking a stand in
Continue readingArt Threat: Butch Dykes: A Herstory told in zines
At the recent Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, where another (better) world of incredibly inspiring, provocative and boundary-pushing art and media is on display each year, I stumbled upon Eloisa Aquino and her wares – a series of zines on awesome butch dykes, appropriately called The Life and Times of Butch Dykes.
Continue readingMelissa Fong: “Fight for liberation, not privilege”: For those who fight for Equity, not equality
Sometimes you read something that is so good and encapsulates what your heart has been wrenching about that you must share it. I have followed the Gay rights movement, the Queer rights movement and the general sentiment of “Just let me be a f*cking PERSON” movement for a long time.
Continue readingSketchy Thoughts: Out: The Making of a Revolutionary
Convicted of the 1983 U.S. Capitol Bombing, and “conspiring to influence, change, and protest policies and practices of the United States government through violent and illegal means”, Laura Whitehorn, an out lesbian and one of six defendants in the Resistance Conspiracy Case, spent 14 years in prison. “OUT” is the
Continue readingArt Threat: Tillett Wright’s million shades of gay
When Tillett Wright began her photographic project, Self Evident Truths, back in 2010 she didn’t expect the groundswell of requests for photographs that she ended up receiving. She originally wanted to shoot 4-5,000 people, but the response has led her to increase her goal to 10,000 people. “I basically decided
Continue readingArt Threat: Identity, Oppression, Resistance
For this week’s Friday Film Pick I’m choosing two very different, seemingly unrelated docs that are available for online viewing. Girl Inside is an intimate portrayal of a male transitioning to female, and because the film is available for streaming from Canada’s TVO broadcaster, it is likely unavailable to non-Canadian
Continue readingPample the Moose: Canadian Queer History in the Making – Kathleen Wynne
Ontario’s Liberal party – struggling on so many fronts these days – nevertheless made history yesterday in selecting Kathleen Wynne as their new leader, and by extension, the new Premier of the province. The second woman to head the Ontario Liber…
Continue readingPample the Moose: Canadian Queer History in the Making – Kathleen Wynne
Ontario’s Liberal party – struggling on so many fronts these days – nevertheless made history yesterday in selecting Kathleen Wynne as their new leader, and by extension, the new Premier of the province. The second woman to head the Ontario Liberals, Wynne will become the first woman to be Ontario’s
Continue readingPample the Moose: Canadian Queer History in the Making – Kathleen Wynne
Ontario’s Liberal party – struggling on so many fronts these days – nevertheless made history yesterday in selecting Kathleen Wynne as their new leader, and by extension, the new Premier of the province. The second woman to head the Ontario Liberals, Wynne will become the first woman to be Ontario’s
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